playwright-proxyhat

Route Playwright browsers through ProxyHat residential proxies — a pinned sticky IP per browser context, geo-targeting, and rotating IPs.

[!TIP] Recommended proxies — ProxyHat residential IPs. Every feature in this package is tested end-to-end against ProxyHat and works great. First-class integration; also works with any proxy, or none.

Why

Driving a browser from datacenter IPs gets you blocked, CAPTCHA'd, and rate-limited. This package plugs ProxyHat's residential IPs (50M+ across 148+ countries) into Playwright through its first-class proxy option — set at launch, or per browser context, which is the real hook: Playwright isolates each context (its own cookies, storage, and IP), so this package maps each context to one pinned residential IP, mimicking a real user. No boilerplate; works with Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit.

Install

npm install playwright-proxyhat

playwright is a peer dependency — bring your own version (>=1.30).

Quick start

import { chromium } from "playwright";
import { newProxyHatContext } from "playwright-proxyhat";

const browser = await chromium.launch();

// An API key auto-selects an active residential sub-user:
const context = await newProxyHatContext(browser, {
  apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY,
  targeting: { country: "us" },
});

const page = await context.newPage();
await page.goto("https://httpbin.org/ip"); // exits from a US residential IP

Get an API key at proxyhat.com.

Credentials

Pass them explicitly or via environment variables — options win over env:

| Option | Env var | Notes | |---|---|---| | apiKey | PROXYHAT_API_KEY | Auto-selects an active sub-user with remaining traffic | | subUser | PROXYHAT_SUBUSER | Pick a specific sub-user by uuid or name (with an API key) | | username | PROXYHAT_USERNAME | Explicit gateway proxy_username (skips the API) | | password | PROXYHAT_PASSWORD | Explicit gateway proxy_password |

Targeting

const context = await newProxyHatContext(browser, {
  apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY,
  protocol: "http", // or "socks5"
  targeting: {
    country: "us",      // ISO code or "any" (default)
    region: "california",
    city: "new_york",
    filter: "high",     // AI IP-quality tier
  },
  stickyTtl: "30m",     // sticky-session lifetime (default "30m")
});

Sticky IP per browser context

By default this package maps each context to one pinned ProxyHat residential IP: a fresh sticky id is minted per context, so concurrent contexts get distinct exit IPs — and every request inside a context keeps that same IP for the context's lifetime, like a real user. Close the context and the IP is dropped.

Want a fresh IP on every request instead? Turn stickiness off — the gateway rotates the exit IP per connection:

await newProxyHatContext(browser, { apiKey, sticky: false });

One IP for the whole browser

Prefer a single IP shared by every context? Set the proxy at launch instead:

import { chromium } from "playwright";
import { proxyhatProxy } from "playwright-proxyhat";

const proxy = await proxyhatProxy({ apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY, targeting: { country: "us" } });
const browser = await chromium.launch({ proxy });

@playwright/test fixture

Give every test its own context on a fresh sticky residential IP by overriding the context fixture:

import { test as base } from "@playwright/test";
import { newProxyHatContext } from "playwright-proxyhat";

export const test = base.extend({
  context: async ({ browser }, use) => {
    const context = await newProxyHatContext(browser, {
      apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY,
      targeting: { country: "us" },
    });
    await use(context);
    await context.close();
  },
});

A runnable version lives in examples/fixture.ts.

Advanced: build the proxy object yourself

Need to combine ProxyHat with your own context logic? Use the lower-level helpers. proxyhatProxy returns a plain Playwright proxy object; proxyhatContextOptions wraps it as { proxy } to spread into newContext:

import { chromium } from "playwright";
import { proxyhatContextOptions } from "playwright-proxyhat";

const browser = await chromium.launch();
const context = await browser.newContext({
  ...(await proxyhatContextOptions({ apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY })),
  locale: "en-US",
  viewport: { width: 1280, height: 800 },
});

Fully offline and synchronous once you have credentials:

import { buildPlaywrightProxy, resolveCredentials } from "playwright-proxyhat";

const credentials = await resolveCredentials({ apiKey: process.env.PROXYHAT_API_KEY });
const proxy = buildPlaywrightProxy(credentials, { targeting: { country: "us" } });
// -> { server: "http://gate.proxyhat.com:8080", username: "…-country-us-sid-…-ttl-30m", password: "…" }

How it works

proxyhatProxy (and newProxyHatContext) resolves your gateway credentials once (via the official proxyhat SDK), then builds a Playwright proxy object: server points at the ProxyHat gateway (gate.proxyhat.com:8080 for HTTP, :1080 for SOCKS5) and username carries the targeting grammar. With stickiness on it mints a sid/ttl so the context keeps one pinned IP; with sticky: false it omits the sid so the gateway hands out a fresh residential IP per connection.

License

MIT © ProxyHat