CLI

cdpwright ships a CLI accessible as cpw (or cdpwright).

When installed locally in a project, use npx:

npx cpw <command>

For a global cpw command:

npm install -g @toolstackhq/cdpwright
cpw <command>

All examples below use npx cpw — drop the npx if installed globally.

Commands

Each command launches its own browser, does its job, and exits.

If you want to prewarm the browser cache first, run:

npx cpw install

cpw screenshot <url> -o <file>

Capture a screenshot (PNG or JPEG based on file extension).

npx cpw screenshot https://example.com -o shot.png
npx cpw screenshot https://example.com -o shot.png --full-page
npx cpw screenshot https://example.com -o shot.jpg --headed

cpw pdf <url> -o <file>

Generate a visual PDF of the page by rendering a screenshot into a PDF. This matches the on-screen browser view better than Chromium's print stylesheet.

npx cpw pdf https://example.com -o page.pdf

cpw html <url> -o <file>

Save the page's current HTML source to disk.

npx cpw html https://example.com -o page.html

cpw markdown <url> -o <file>

Convert the rendered page into Markdown using a lightweight DOM-aware serializer.

npx cpw markdown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence -o wiki.md
npx cpw markdown https://example.com

The command focuses on useful content: headings, paragraphs, links, lists, quotes, tables, and code blocks. It is intentionally partial, which keeps it useful for AI ingestion without promising perfect round-tripping.

cpw eval <url> <script>

Run a JavaScript expression in the page and print the result as JSON.

npx cpw eval https://example.com "document.title"
npx cpw eval https://example.com "document.querySelectorAll('a').length"

cpw install

Download a pinned Chromium snapshot to the local cache, Playwright-style.

npx cpw install                # pinned revision
npx cpw install --latest       # latest available revision
npx cpw install --mirror <url> # use a custom mirror base URL
npx cpw install --url <url>    # use an exact zip URL

download is an alias for install.

cpw init test <runner>

Scaffold a starter test suite and update package.json with an npm test script and the matching runner dependency.

Supported runners:

npx cpw init test vitest
npx cpw init test mocha
npx cpw init test node

The scaffold uses built-in assert for Mocha and Node's native runner, and imports cdpExpect from @toolstackhq/cdpwright for Vitest. It also writes a tiny local HTML fixture so the generated test runs offline.

Every generated template includes the Linux Chromium launch flags used by CI:

args: process.platform === "linux" ? ["--no-sandbox", "--no-zygote", "--disable-dev-shm-usage"] : []

The templates are also checked in CI for all supported runners, so the generated starter suite stays in sync with the CLI.

cpw version

Print cdpwright and Chromium versions.

npx cpw version

Options

Flag	Description
--headless	Run in headless mode (default for screenshot, pdf, eval)
--headed	Run in headed mode
-o, --output <file>	Output file path (for screenshot, html, and pdf)
--full-page	Capture full scrollable page (for screenshot)
--latest	Download the latest Chromium revision (for install)
--mirror <url>	Custom mirror base URL (for install)
--url <url>	Exact zip URL override (for install)

Interactive session

For interactive workflows — manually browse a page, then run CLI commands against it from another terminal.

cpw open <url>

Launch a headed browser, navigate to a URL, and start a session. The browser stays open until you press Ctrl+C or run cpw close.

npx cpw open https://example.com

cpw close

Close the running browser session.

npx cpw close

Using commands with a session

While a session is running, commands work without a URL — they operate on the live page:

# Terminal 1 — open and manually browse
npx cpw open https://example.com

# Terminal 2 — run commands against the live page
npx cpw screenshot -o shot.png
npx cpw eval "document.title"
npx cpw pdf -o page.pdf
npx cpw close

This is useful when you need to log in, navigate to a specific state, or interact with the page before capturing or extracting data.

Corporate proxy / internal mirrors

See Configuration for details on CDPWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_MIRROR and CDPWRIGHT_DOWNLOAD_URL.