Summary

• Resolve the update check command with the same minimist options program() uses, instead of taking the first argument that does not start with -
• Compare every markdown file of the installed skill, not only SKILL.md
• Stop scripts/update.js from deleting skills/playwright-cli before the copy succeeds
• Ignore the .playwright/ directory that install writes

Why

The update check never ran when a global option preceded the command. It picked the command with
process.argv.slice(2).find(arg => !arg.startsWith('-')), which returns the value of a preceding
option rather than the command. program() parses argv with minimist, where --config is not a
boolean option and therefore consumes the next token. So for the invocation documented in the README:

playwright-cli --config path/to/config.json open example.com

program() dispatches open, while the update check saw path/to/config.json, found it absent from
UPDATE_CHECK_COMMANDS, and returned early. Both the version notice and the stale-skill warning were
silently lost. The same applies to --session name open ….

minimist.js and help.json are internal to playwright-core and not in its exports map, so they
are resolved by path — the way skillCheck.js already resolves the bundled SKILL.md — and the old
heuristic remains as a fallback, keeping the check best-effort rather than letting a moved file break
every command.

The skill check only compared SKILL.md. The skill ships ten reference guides alongside it, and a
stale file under references/ misleads the agent just as much. A file missing from the installation
now reads as out of date too.

scripts/update.js could delete the committed skills folder. It removed skills/playwright-cli
and then copied the generated skill over it, with the whole block wrapped in a catch that printed
Generated skills directory not found and exited 0. Any failure in fs.cp therefore left the skills
deleted, reported a cause that was not the real one, and still looked successful — during the roll
flow documented in .claude/skills/dev/roll.md. The copy is now staged beside the target and swapped
in, the previous folder is restored if the swap fails, and real errors surface with a non-zero exit.

Tests

Two tests added:

• update check runs when a global option precedes the command — uses --session work list, since
  --session is a global option that takes a value
• update check warns when an installed reference file is out of date

All 11 tests pass locally.

Not covered

• windowsHide: true was added to the npm view spawn (program() already sets it on its own
  spawns) but is not verified — it needs Windows
• scripts/update.js has no automated test; it was verified end to end by running it and confirming
  skills/ came back byte-identical with no leftover staging directories