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Comment by spuz | Hacker News Reader

Why is it called "headless"? I understand the term when it comes to running automated tests, but I don't understand how it can claim to be "headless" when it requires a real browser window in order to execute?

Also what benefit does the extension provide over Playwright's inspector tool?

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Both Playwright and Puppeteer can use “headless” mode, which actually does not spin up a full, visual window. This makes running in CI or other test environments very effective.

In that case, "headless" refers to the method those tools use to run their automated tests. In the case of this "Headless Recorder" however, it apparently runs as an extension in a real browser and records real human inputs which implies it must be running "headed". So the question still applies.

I think it requires a "head" to record. But the generated scripts can then be run headless.

Any scripts could run headed or headless, the name doesn’t make sense because of that. Headless is a runtime argument passed to the chromedriver, not a property of the test script itself.

from the comment you're responding to:

> I understand the term when it comes to running automated tests, but I don't understand how it can claim to be "headless" when it requires a real browser window in order to execute?

Hey, it does not claim to be headless. Headless Recorder is the name we picked trying to sound as generic as possible in terms of tools (Puppeteer, Playwright or whatever came up in the future). Headless stands for the code that is being generated and not for the tool

Ok thanks. That makes a bit more sense!

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