microsoft / microsoft/playwright

[CLI]: find returns the full ancestor chain, and neither find nor snapshot can bound their output

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#42,077 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
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Description

`find` returns the whole ancestor chain of the match, so most of the output is wrapper nodes rather than the thing found. Searching a job board for one heading gave me eight levels of `generic [ref=eN]` to deliver three useful lines:

```
- generic [ref=e2]:
- generic [ref=e8]:
- generic [ref=e12]:
- generic [ref=e26]:
- generic [ref=e72]:
- link [ref=e73] [cursor=pointer]:
- /url: /pangramlabs/64baa007...
- generic [ref=e74]:
- heading "AI Research Scientist (NLP)" [level=3] [ref=e75]
```

For agent use this matters because the output is the context budget. A mode that returns the matched node plus its immediate children, without the path back to root, would cut that several-fold.

Related, there is no way to bound the output when a query is common: no `--max-results` on `find`, and no depth limit on `snapshot`, so a deeply nested SPA produces a large tree when two levels would do. Version 0.1.17.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start at the CLI entry points for `find` and `snapshot`, then trace how their output and options are assembled. Check existing CLI tests for these commands before defining coverage for matched-node output, `--max-results`, and snapshot depth limits; done means bounded output is exposed consistently and the current behavior remains covered.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
typescript
Domain
cli, tooling
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
55/100

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