Install fails and playwright never gets installed correctly #1091
Description
I installed a previous version of agent-browser, and at some point it stopped working. I tried using npm install -g agent-browser
Which got me 0.23.1
Platform: Debian Linux x86_64 (glibc), Node.js v22.21.1, npm 9.2.0
Then I ran agent-browser install, which succeded.
Running any command (like agent-browser open example.com) got me:
✗ browser.newContext: Cannot find module './../../../package.json'
Require stack:
- /.../.npm-global/lib/node_modules/agent-browser/node_modules/playwright-core/lib/server/utils/userAgent.js
- /.../.npm-global/lib/node_modules/agent-browser/node_modules/playwright-core/lib/server/registry/browserFetcher.js
I tried install playwright globally, no change.
I let Claude find and fix the issue, and this is what it found:
The native binary embeds Node.js and resolves playwright-core relative to its own install directory (/node_modules/playwright-core/). However, playwright-core is not declared in package.json's dependencies field (which is empty {}), so npm install never fetches it, and the expected path does not exist.
Workaround
Manually install playwright-core inside the package directory after installation:
cd $(npm root -g)/agent-browser
npm install playwright-core
After this, agent-browser open example.com works correctly.
Expected behavior
playwright-core should be listed as a dependency in package.json so it is installed automatically by npm.
Suggested fix
Add playwright-core (version 1.58.2 or whichever version the binary targets) to the dependencies field in package.json:
"dependencies": {
"playwright-core": "1.58.2"
}
Sorry if this issue was somehow caused by me doing the install/update wrong, feel free to close if not relevant.