postinstall `npx playwright install chromium` can resolve a global playwright — wrong browser revision + pre-1.60 extraction hang

[raviwu]

Environment: verdict-cli 0.1.1 · macOS arm64 · Node 26.3.0 / npm 11.16 · global @playwright/test 1.59.1 on PATH

What happened

npm install -g verdict-cli hung indefinitely at the postinstall (Chromium download reached 100%, then froze overnight). After recovering manually, verdict failed to start:

browserType.launch: Executable doesn't exist at …/chromium_headless_shell-1223/chrome-headless-shell-mac-arm64/chrome-headless-shell

Root cause

The postinstall runs npx playwright install chromium. npx can resolve playwright from PATH — here a globally installed @playwright/test 1.59.1 — instead of the playwright 1.60 bundled in verdict-cli's own node_modules. Two failure modes follow:

1. Wrong revision: the global 1.59.1 installs chromium v1217, but the server (bundled playwright 1.60) needs v1223 → "Executable doesn't exist" even after a "successful" install.
2. Extraction hang: playwright < 1.60 hangs forever at zip extraction on Node 24.16+/26 ([Bug]: playwright install hangs in node v26 microsoft/playwright#40724), so the postinstall itself never finishes — and npm buffers postinstall output, so it looks like a generic freeze.

Suggested fix

Change the postinstall script from npx playwright install chromium to playwright install chromium. npm puts the package's own node_modules/.bin first on PATH during lifecycle scripts, so the bundled playwright CLI (and its matching browser revision) always wins, regardless of what's installed globally.

Workaround for affected users

cd "$(npm root -g)/verdict-cli" && node_modules/.bin/playwright install chromium