Network instruments

Fetch#

Sends an HTTP request directly — GET, POST, PUT, DELETE or PATCH — and saves the response to a variable.

Two properties make Fetch more useful than calling an API from the page:

• It runs from Node, not the page, so it is not subject to the page's CORS policy. Any API you can reach, you can call.
• It shares the browser's context and cookies. If your flow logged into a site, Fetch calls that site's API as the logged-in user — no tokens to copy around.

Fields:

• URL and Method.
• Body — JSON or a plain string (sent for everything except GET).
• Headers — a JSON object, e.g. { "Accept": "application/json" }.
• Parse response as — json (decoded into an object), text, or none.
• Save result as — the variable that receives the parsed response.

The console shows the HTTP status after each call. A typical pattern: log in through the UI once, then Fetch the site's own JSON API for the data — far faster and more reliable than scraping the DOM.

Intercept#

Registers a rule for matching network requests: abort (block) or continue (allow). The URL pattern is a glob — **/api/**, **/*.png. Blocking images, analytics or ad scripts can speed up heavy pages considerably.

Exported scripts only. The embedded browser's CDP connection doesn't support request interception — in the app this step fails with a message saying so. In an exported Playwright script it works as configured.