docs(apify-actor-development): add remote-first guidance for Playwright Actors#62
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…ht Actors Playwright's bundled Chromium needs native system libraries (glibc, libnss3, libatk, fonts) that many agent sandboxes, minimal containers, and CI runners don't provide. `apify run` for a Playwright Actor then fails with confusing errors like `chrome-headless-shell ENOENT`, missing `ld-linux-x86-64.so.2`, or `su: must be suid to work properly` from `playwright install-deps` — all of which look like Actor bugs but are actually environment gaps. Add a "Testing Playwright (and other browser-based) Actors" section that: - recommends skipping local `apify run` for browser Actors and going straight to `apify push` + `apify call`, since the platform's images have every browser dependency preinstalled; - lists the typical failure signatures so agents recognize them and pivot quickly instead of chasing the code; - provides a small `ld-linux-x86-64.so.2` probe as a programmatic capability check; - warns against `npx playwright install-deps` in unprivileged environments; - clarifies that non-browser Actors (Cheerio / HTTP / requests) are unaffected. Surfaced during an evaluation of Apify surfaces for agent-driven Actor development. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
DaveHanns
marked this pull request as draft
July 5, 2026 11:21
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Summary
Add a new section to
skills/apify-actor-development/SKILL.mdthat tells agents to skip localapify runfor browser-based Actors and go straight toapify push+apify call. Playwright's bundled Chromium requires native system libraries that many agent sandboxes, minimal containers, and CI runners don't ship — so today agents spend several turns diagnosing what looks like Actor bugs but is really an environment gap.Problem
When an agent scaffolds a Playwright / PlaywrightCrawler Actor and runs
apify runinside a typical agent sandbox or minimal container, one of three failure modes shows up:Chromium binary missing / unlaunchable:
Dynamic linker missing (musl-based or stripped images):
playwright install-depscannot escalate:All three look like Actor code bugs, but the fix is always the same: run remotely on the Apify platform, whose Actor images already include glibc, libnss3, libatk, fonts, and the rest of the Chromium runtime.
Fix
New section "Testing Playwright (and other browser-based) Actors" in
SKILL.md, placed right after the existing "Local testing" section. It:apify runfor browser Actors and going straight toapify push+apify call.npx playwright install-depsin unprivileged environments (it needs root apt access).requests) are unaffected —apify runremains the right local loop for them.Docs-only change; no code paths touched.
Test plan
skills/apify-actor-development/SKILL.mdrenders with a new "Testing Playwright (and other browser-based) Actors" section between "Local testing" and "Standby mode".apify push+apify callon the first attempt instead of debugging local browser launches.Surfaced during an evaluation of Apify surfaces for agent-driven Actor development.