Support for Playwright MCP

[rmarescu]

Playwright has released an MCP server. It could be an alternative to using AI for computer use.

Fast and lightweight: Uses Playwright's accessibility tree, not pixel-based input.
LLM-friendly: No vision models needed, operates purely on structured data.
Deterministic tool application: Avoids ambiguity common with screenshot-based approaches.

[m2rads]

This would be a very good enhancement. Here is a proof of concept of how it would look with Vercel AI SDK supporting both visual and snapshot mode:

https://github.com/m2rads/e2e-mcp

[rmarescu]

Hard to tell from the linked repo what features were added compared with microsoft/playwright-mcp (combing through +60 commits would take considerable effort).

The thought on how this could work with Shortest: creating an MCP client within Shortest would open up Shortest to interact with many tools (mostly via other MCP servers, some custom-made).
That way, Shortest doesn't have to solve everything that is needed to build a QA agent, and can leverage existing tech/tools to accomplish its goal.

For example, our custom sleep tool can be replaced with PW's browser_wait, or navigate with PW's navigation tools, and so on.

Then Shortest can truly focus on orchestrating what tools are needed to get the job done. It could have some custom tools to detect a framework within a repo, analyze the code base, create a test plan, generate Shortest tests, etc.

[m2rads]

All I did was wrap the core Playwright MCP with an AI client to enable tool-calling like this.

The benefit is a lighter-weight approach to using Playwright as the foundation for browser automation, while also making it easier to integrate with a broader range of AI models via the Vercel AI SDK.

I also agree with your point about building a dedicated MCP client. That would allow Shortest to interact with other MCP servers like Figma or Supabase MCP, enabling comparison between actual and expected results. This would make Shortest more deterministic.

Another cool idea would be a Shortest MCP server. I think this would be the most requested feature by now.

Happy to help however I can!