Playwright CLI Ships 4x Token Reduction Over MCP for AI Browser Automation: 27K vs 114K Tokens Per Task

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Microsoft's Playwright CLI (@playwright/cli npm package) demonstrates a 4x token reduction versus Playwright MCP for browser automation in coding agents — 27,000 tokens per task vs 114,000 with MCP. Instead of streaming accessibility trees and screenshot bytes into the LLM context window, CLI saves to disk and lets agents selectively read what they need. Modern coding agents increasingly prefer CLI-based workflows exposed as SKILLs over MCP for 10-100x lower token usage with higher determinism, making CLI the pragmatic default for agent-driven testing.