[Toto Leung (chintoleung)]

Summary

• The local-installation check npx --no-install playwright --version passes on any local
  Playwright, but the cli subcommand first works in 1.59; on ≤1.58 all
  npx playwright cli <command> invocations fail with error: unknown command 'cli'.
• State the 1.59 minimum, make npx --no-install playwright cli list the deciding probe,
  route both failure branches (too old / no local install) to the global install, and keep
  --no-install on subsequent project-local invocations.
• The bundled skill source gets the same change in microsoft/playwright
  (docs(cli): require playwright 1.59+ for the local cli fallback in the skill playwright#44032); the generated skills/ copy here
  updates when a roll brings in a Playwright build that contains it. Once a roll ships the
  new bundled skill, users whose installed skill predates it will see skillCheck.js ask
  them to reinstall — expected.

Validation

macOS 27.0.1 (Apple Silicon), Node 24.21.0, npm 11.19.0, via npx; not tested on Windows:

Playwright	cli --help	cli list
none (--no-install, cold and warm npx cache)	exit 1 (npx canceled)	exit 1 (npx canceled)
1.55.0 / 1.58.2	exit 0, root help — false positive	exit 1, error: unknown command 'cli'
1.59.0	exit 0, usage stub only	exit 0, session list
1.60.0 / 1.61.1	exit 0, full command list	exit 0

(1.55.1, 1.56.1, 1.57.0, 1.59.1, 1.62.1 spot-checked; full matrix in
microsoft/playwright#44031.)
cli list started no browser/daemon and created no .playwright/.

Refs microsoft/playwright#44031