Playwright MCP 0.0.84 adds isolated contexts per tab

Microsoft published Playwright MCP v0.0.84 on October 31, 2026, about five weeks after v0.0.83. npm moved @playwright/mcp latest to 0.0.84 the same afternoon. The headline is separate browser sessions inside one browser, so an agent can work with two accounts without them sharing cookies. Most of the other changes cut down on what lands in the model's context.

Release facts

New

• Isolated contexts in one browser. browser_tabs with action: "new" takes isolatedContext: "<name>". Tabs with the same name share cookies and storage, and different names stay apart. Omit it, or pass "default", for the default context. Cookie and storage tools act on the current tab's context.
• Redact URL parameters. --redact-url-params=access_token,code (config redactUrlParams, env PLAYWRIGHT_MCP_REDACT_URL_PARAMS) replaces those query and fragment values with <redacted> in tool responses. That covers tokens minted at runtime, which a secrets file can't list ahead of time. The notes say this is a convenience, not a security feature.
• Capped find results. browser_find accepts maxResults and still reports the total match count.
• Network history across navigations. browser_network_requests with all: true keeps up to 200 requests from earlier pages, and request indexes stay stable.
• Locators in your language. browser_click and other element tools accept JavaScript, Python, Java and C# locators in target, alongside snapshot refs and CSS selectors.
• --ignore-roots skips the roots/list request for clients that advertise roots but never answer it, which could stall the first tool call.
• Cookie delete by domain and path in browser_cookie_delete (opt-in with --caps=storage).

Fixes worth knowing

• HTTP transport: loopback hosts (localhost, 127.0.0.1, [::1]) are allowed for any bind address. Other hosts still need --allowed-hosts. With --isolated, each client now has its own idle timer.
• Proxy: credentials in a --proxy-server URL are passed to the browser as proxy username and password.
• Waiting: browser_wait_for can combine time, text and textGone. With a text condition, time is the timeout (capped at 30 seconds), not a delay.
• Snapshots: unrendered text, inert elements and content outside the top modal <dialog> are left out. Click and fill wait for inert targets instead of misfiring.
• Shutdown: a stdio disconnect closes the browser cleanly instead of force-killing it.

Questions

Should I upgrade? Yes if your agent logs into more than one account, or if tool responses leak OAuth code or access_token values into transcripts. The release notes list no breaking change.

Does redaction make it safe to give an agent real credentials? No. The release notes call --redact-url-params, like the secrets file, a convenience rather than a security feature. It only masks values in tool responses.

MCP or Playwright CLI? The README suggests Playwright CLI with skills for coding agents that are short on context, and MCP for long-running loops that need persistent browser state. See the Playwright MCP hub.

More: the MCP servers category, Browser Use for a Python browser agent, and this week's FastMCP 4.1.4.