Implementation:Microsoft Playwright BidiChromium

Knowledge Sources	Microsoft_Playwright
Domains	BiDi, Chromium
Last Updated	2026-02-12 00:00 GMT

Overview

Concrete tool for launching and connecting to Chromium browsers using the WebDriver BiDi protocol provided by the Playwright library.

Description

The `BidiChromium` class extends `BrowserType` to provide Chromium-specific browser launching via the BiDi protocol. Since Chrome does not natively support BiDi, it dynamically loads the `bidiOverCdp` module to create a BiDi transport layer over the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP). The class handles Chromium-specific launch arguments (including GPU flags, disabled features, and headless configuration), rewrites startup log messages for common errors (missing X server), and manages the connection lifecycle including the `kBidiOverCdpWrapper` transport wrapper.

Usage

Use BidiChromium when launching Chromium-based browsers through Playwright's BiDi protocol path, which is the alternative transport to the direct CDP connection used by `CRBrowser`.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: Microsoft_Playwright
• File: packages/playwright-core/src/server/bidi/bidiChromium.ts

Signature

export class BidiChromium extends BrowserType {
  constructor(parent: SdkObject);
  override async connectToTransport(transport: ConnectionTransport, options: BrowserOptions, browserLogsCollector: RecentLogsCollector): Promise<BidiBrowser>;
  override doRewriteStartupLog(logs: string): string;
  override defaultArgs(options: types.LaunchOptions, isPersistent: boolean, userDataDir: string): string[];
}

Import

import { BidiChromium } from '../server/bidi/bidiChromium';

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
parent	SdkObject	Yes	Parent SDK object for instrumentation
transport	ConnectionTransport	Yes	The raw transport to the Chromium process
options	BrowserOptions	Yes	Browser launch configuration options
browserLogsCollector	RecentLogsCollector	Yes	Collector for recent browser stderr logs

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
browser	BidiBrowser	Connected BidiBrowser instance wrapping the Chromium process
args	string[]	Chromium command-line arguments for launching

Usage Examples

import { BidiChromium } from '../server/bidi/bidiChromium';

const bidiChromium = new BidiChromium(playwrightSdkObject);
const args = bidiChromium.defaultArgs(launchOptions, false, '/tmp/userdata');
const browser = await bidiChromium.connectToTransport(transport, browserOptions, logsCollector);

Related Pages

• Environment:Microsoft_Playwright_Node_Runtime_Environment