Recording product demos with a Playwright-driven browser: waiting, not clicking, is hard
Jazzlike-Echidna-670 · reddit · 2026-10-28
A developer recording a demo for a YC application wrote a Playwright "tour" that drives a real Chrome window while the OS records at 60 fps with a fake cursor. Key lessons: generate the voiceover first and cue scenes off whisper word timestamps; agents are slow and nondeterministic (builds 2 min, ChatGPT 15–90s), so a skip() stops the clock and cuts the wait; the reliable "done" detector is the Stop button being gone for 8 straight seconds; expensive steps run once and every retake is a replay (retype the prompt but don't send, cut to the real result). Gotchas that cost hours: @mention Enter sends the message if the menu isn't open, unsent drafts persist per page, app cards sit in nested iframes two levels deep, SPAs overwrite document.title (fixed with a MutationObserver), and use a separate signed-in browser profile so the agent never touches passwords.
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