The Illustrated Playwright is now public. It is an independent, animated reference to how Playwright works inside. Playwright is created by Microsoft and its contributors; the book reads its source code at tag v1.64.1 and is not official documentation.
This edition has 23 spreads: an opening spread on the anatomy of a test and six parts on messages and browser objects, the path from locator to click, request routing and HAR, the test runner, expectations and reports, and tracing and codegen. Each spread pairs an animated figure with short text, code insets and the call-log messages a reader can see. The map shows all spreads at once.
Every claim on a spread names the Playwright file and lines it comes from, and a script checks each quoted line against the pinned source. The Docs vs. code register collects 11 findings: in 2 the code contradicts the documentation, in 9 it shows detail the documentation does not state. For example, a forced click still needs the element’s box in the viewport and fails at once without it.
The analysis is static and covers one version; figures are illustrations with example values, not recordings of a run. Method and sources explains how the spreads were made, and the project page records scope, architecture, verification and limitations.