[Fix] Antigravity fails to open Chrome on Windows? Here is the solution!

If you’ve been experimenting with Antigravity’s Browser Subagent on Windows and found yourself stuck with a browser that just won’t launch, you’re not alone. It’s a frustrating roadblock when you’re trying to let the AI “see” your website or test a UI, but instead of a browser window, you get an error log.

The good news? It’s a known issue with a very simple fix. This guide assumes you already have the Antigravity Browser Extension installed and ready to go.

The Symptom

When you ask Antigravity to perform a task requiring the browser—like “look at my website”—the operation fails. If you dig into the terminal or error logs, you’ll likely see this specific culprit:

"Failed to install playwright: $HOME environment variable is not set"

Why It Happens

Antigravity relies on Playwright, a powerful tool designed to “drive” browsers. Playwright was originally built for Linux and macOS environments. On those systems, there’s a standard shortcut called $HOME that points to the user’s directory.

Windows, however, prefers using %USERPROFILE%. Because Playwright specifically looks for $HOME and doesn’t find it, it essentially “panics” and stops the installation, preventing Antigravity from taking control of Chrome.

(My take? The Antigravity team is likely doing most of their heavy testing on Macs, leaving us Windows users to bridge these small gaps!)

The Step-by-Step Fix

We can fix this by manually creating that $HOME shortcut in Windows. Here is how to do it in under 60 seconds:

1. Open PowerShell

Click your Start menu, type PowerShell, and open it. You don’t necessarily need Administrator rights for this, but it doesn’t hurt.

2. Run the Fix Command

Copy the following command, paste it into your PowerShell window, and hit Enter. This tells Windows to alias your user profile folder as “HOME” for any program that asks for it.

[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('HOME', "$env:USERPROFILE", 'User')

3. Restart Antigravity

This is a crucial step. The environment variable change won’t be picked up by the IDE until it’s completely closed and reopened.

What to Expect

Once you’ve restarted, try asking the Agent to open your browser again. You might see a small delay the first time while Playwright completes its setup, but after that, you should see Chrome launch and Antigravity start doing its magic.

Happy agentic browsing! 😎

AlexIn Tech