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Use Puppeteer’s page.tracing API: start the trace immediately before the page load or interaction you want to investigate, perform that action, and stop the trace afterward. Provide a file path to save the trace, or omit it and use the trace bytes returned by stop().

Start and save a trace

This complete example records navigation to a page and writes the trace to trace.json:

const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
try {
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  await page.tracing.start({ path: 'trace.json' });
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  await page.tracing.stop();
} finally {
  await browser.close();
}

Start tracing before the work you want to measure. For a page-load trace, start before page.goto(); for an interaction trace, start immediately before the interaction and stop once it finishes. Puppeteer’s documentation says the resulting trace can be opened in Chrome DevTools or the timeline viewer (Puppeteer Tracing class).

Capture an interaction instead of navigation

Use the same start-and-stop sequence around the operation under investigation. For example, after loading a page, record a button click and the resulting update:

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await page.goto('https://example.com');

await page.tracing.start({ path: 'interaction-trace.json' });
await page.click('#load-more');
await page.waitForSelector('.additional-results');
await page.tracing.stop();

Choose an end condition that represents the interaction you care about. Here, the trace includes the click and waits until the new results appear. If you stop immediately after triggering asynchronous work, the trace may not include the work’s completion.

Get trace data without writing a file

The path option is optional. Without it, tracing.stop() returns the trace as a Uint8Array. You can pass that value to code that stores or processes binary data:

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await page.tracing.start();
await page.goto('https://example.com');
const traceBytes = await page.tracing.stop();

// Example: write the returned bytes using Node.js filesystem APIs.
const fs = require('node:fs/promises');
await fs.writeFile('trace.json', traceBytes);

The tracing options are documented in Puppeteer’s TracingOptions interface.

Choose categories and screenshots when needed

For a first trace, the default options are usually the simplest starting point. When you need to tune what is captured, Puppeteer provides optional tracing settings:

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  • categories selects tracing categories to include; prefix a category name with - to exclude it.
  • screenshots controls whether screenshots are captured as part of the trace.
  • path sets the output file; omit it to receive bytes from tracing.stop().

Use categories to narrow or tailor trace data for the question you are investigating. Screenshot capture can add visual context to a trace, but is not required to produce one. Consult the current options reference for accepted values and behavior, since Puppeteer and the DevTools Protocol can evolve.

Inspect the trace

Open a saved trace file in Chrome DevTools or the timeline viewer to inspect the captured events. If you omitted path, first save or otherwise transfer the returned Uint8Array to a file or a tool that accepts trace data.

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Important limits and troubleshooting

Only one trace can be active per browser

Puppeteer permits only one active trace at a time per browser. Stop the current trace before calling tracing.start() for another capture. This constraint is per browser, not a reason to keep the trace running across unrelated work. See the tracing.start() reference.

No trace file appears

Check whether you supplied path to tracing.start(). Without a path, Puppeteer returns trace bytes when you call tracing.stop() rather than writing a file automatically.

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The trace misses the work of interest

Start tracing before the navigation or interaction begins, and stop only after the relevant work has completed. For asynchronous page behavior, wait for a meaningful completion condition before stopping.

A second start fails

Make sure the earlier capture has been stopped with await page.tracing.stop() before starting another trace in that browser.

Or skip the browser setup: ScreenshotNeo

ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server, not a Puppeteer performance-tracing replacement. If the task is to capture a clean page image rather than inspect browser trace events, one GET request can return an image or PDF. The API can accept cookie banners and remove known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture. Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, and failed loads are not billed; response headers report the page verdict and billing status. Its MCP server provides screenshot and PDF tools for AI agents.

For a screenshot, use this cURL example (replace YOUR_API_KEY with your key):

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curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://example.com -o shot.webp

See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for parameters and configuration. Plans include 1,000 screenshots per month free with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Learn about ScreenshotNeo, or sign up for the free plan.

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