u/New_Fee_8735

I like Playwright MCP inside Cursor.

For unknown bugs it is genuinely useful.

Open the page, inspect the DOM, click around, read the console, figure out why the modal is stuck. That interactive loop is exactly what MCP is good at.

But I realised I was using the same setup for this:

Log in → open settings → change timezone → save → refresh → confirm timezone stayed changed.

The flow was already known.

Cursor still spent half the conversation opening the page, reading snapshots, deciding what to click, re-reading the page and then explaining what it saw.

It worked, but it felt like keeping an entire browser conversation alive for a 90-second smoke check.

So I split the workflow:

Unknown problem: Cursor + browser MCP

Known repeatable check: external CLI

Permanent critical flow: Playwright test in the repo

For the middle layer I’ve been trying Kane CLI from TestMu.

Cursor can read the Kane instructions through the same AGENTS.md-style path and call it after making a change.

Kane runs the objective and gives Cursor structured pass/fail output plus the browser evidence.

So instead of the coding conversation containing every click and page snapshot, Cursor basically gets:

• flow completed or failed

• assertion that failed

• final page state

• evidence from the run

That separation feels cleaner.

I’m not saying MCP always burns too much context. If the agent is debugging something unknown, that context is the whole point.

And I’m not replacing Playwright with Kane. Auth, billing, permissions and stable regression flows still belong in proper tests.

This is specifically for the awkward middle ground where the flow is too repeatable for exploration but not important enough to immediately build and maintain as a permanent test.

Do you keep browser control inside Cursor’s context, or move known checks out into CLI/CI?

yesterday I was running some errands downtown and just needed to park for maybe 45 minutes to pick something up. walked up to the street meter, saw there was no card slot, just a QR code. fine. Scanned it, expecting a quick webpage where I could just use Apple Pay and be on my way.

Instead, it routed me to the App Store to download a 180MB parking app.

i'm standing there sweating on the sidewalk, watching the little circle load. it finishes, I open it, and it wants my email. then it wants me to verify my email. then it asks me to create an account with a password. not just any password, but one with an uppercase letter, a number, and a special character.

i'm literally just trying to give you four dollars. I do not want to enter a lifelong digital relationship with a piece of pavement.

Once I finally got in, the pop-ups started. 'Allow to send push notifications?' Absolutely not. Why would a parking meter need to send me a push notification? 'Allow tracking across other apps?' Again, why? By the time I finally paid, I was weirdly exhausted by the whole interaction.

i realized this whole thing has made me kind of dread clicking on anything anymore. later that afternoon I was just trying to look at a menu for a local bakery. I tapped their menuforma link on instagram, already mentally bracing myself to hit 'cancel' on some app store redirect or close out of an account creation wall.

but it just... opened. Right there in Safari. No pop-ups, no account wall, no location requests. I actually felt a genuine wave of relief, which is kind of sad when you think about it. its crazy that 'works in a normal web browser' has somehow become a luxury feature.

maybe I'm just getting old and impatient, but I swear I used to download things without thinking twice. Now I just looked at my home screen and realized I have three different parking apps, plus a bunch of other random ones I don't even recognize from some one-off task in 2024.

do you guys actually keep all these random one-use apps on your phone or do you delete them the second you're done? because looking at my screen right now is giving me anxiety.