PlaywrightPHP

Pause in the inspector

Open the inspector and pause execution for debugging.

This example launches headed Chromium with the Playwright inspector enabled, navigates to example.com, and pauses execution.

Use it locally when you want to inspect the page, try locators, or step through a failing action.

Run it

bash
php content/examples/inspector-demo.php

Expected output:

text
Calling page->pause() -- Inspector should open now...

The script waits until you resume from the inspector. It is intentionally interactive.

What it demonstrates

  • Inspector runs are local debugging sessions.
  • headless: false makes the browser visible.
  • withInspector() enables inspector support.
  • page->pause() stops execution until you resume.

Do not leave inspector pauses in committed test flows.

Go next

Source

inspector-demo.php
php
<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

/*
 * This file is part of the community-maintained Playwright PHP project.
 * It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.
 *
 * (c) 2025-Present - Playwright PHP - https://github.com/playwright-php
 *
 * For the full copyright and license information, please view the LICENSE
 * file that was distributed with this source code.
 */

require __DIR__.'/../../vendor/autoload.php';

use Playwright\Configuration\PlaywrightConfig;
use Playwright\PlaywrightFactory;

// Simple demo: launch headed Chromium with Inspector and pause.

$config = new PlaywrightConfig(
    headless: false,
);

$playwright = PlaywrightFactory::create($config);
$browser = $playwright->chromium()->withInspector()->launch();

$page = $browser->newPage();
$page->goto('https://example.com');

// This opens Playwright Inspector and pauses execution.
echo "Calling page->pause() -- Inspector should open now...\n";
$page->pause();

echo "Resumed from Inspector. Closing...\n";
$browser->close();