Browse — Browser Automation for Agents
How it works
browse is a CLI that wraps Playwright behind a persistent daemon on a Unix socket. The daemon cold-starts in ~3s on first use, then every command runs in sub-200ms. Session state (cookies, localStorage, auth tokens) persists across commands within a session.
All output is plain text. Objects are JSON-stringified. Commands return non-zero on failure with an error message.
Important constraints:
- Commands are sequential — do not run multiple
browse commands in parallel. The daemon handles one command at a time.
- Run
browse help for the full command list, or browse help <command> for detailed usage and flags.
The ref system — read this first
Refs (@e1, @e2, ...) are how you target elements. They replace CSS selectors for most interactions.
Rules:
- Always
browse snapshot before interacting. Refs only exist after a snapshot.
- Refs are ephemeral. Every
snapshot call regenerates them. Old refs are invalid.
- Refs go stale after navigation. Any
goto or click that changes the page invalidates refs. You'll get a clear error — just browse snapshot again.
Core interaction loop:
browse snapshot # see what's on the page — get refs
browse fill @e3 "test" # fill the search field
browse click @e4 # click a button
browse snapshot # re-snapshot after the page changes
Workflow
The standard pattern for any browser task:
- Navigate:
browse goto <url>
- Observe:
browse snapshot for page structure (interactive elements with refs). Use browse snapshot -i to include structural elements (headings, text), or -f for the full accessibility tree.
- Check for errors:
browse console --level error after navigation.
- Interact:
browse fill @eN "value", browse click @eN, browse hover @eN, browse press Tab, browse select @eN "option", browse scroll @eN (scroll into view).
- Use
browse press <key> for keyboard navigation (Tab, Escape, Enter, ArrowDown, Shift+Tab, etc.). Multiple keys: browse press Tab Tab Tab.
- Use
browse scroll down/up to page through content, browse scroll top/bottom to jump to extremes.
- After clicks that trigger SPA navigation, use
browse wait url /path, browse wait text "Expected", or browse wait visible .selector before snapshotting.
- Verify:
browse snapshot or browse screenshot after each interaction to confirm the result.
- Repeat: Move through pages and flows.
For configured applications, browse healthcheck gives a quick pass/fail across key pages.
Key commands by category
| Category | Commands |
|---|
| Navigate | goto <url>, url, back, forward, reload [--hard], text, version, quit, wipe |
| Observe | snapshot, screenshot (--diff, --threshold), console, network |
| Interact | click @eN, hover @eN [--duration ms], press <key> [key ...], fill @eN "value", select @eN "option", upload @eN <file> [file ...], attr @eN [attribute], scroll down/up/top/bottom/@eN/x y, form --data '{"field":"value"}' |
| Wait | wait url <str>, wait text <str>, wait visible <sel>, wait hidden <sel>, wait network-idle, wait <ms> |
| Viewport | viewport, goto --viewport/--device/--preset |
| Evaluate | eval <expr> (in-page JS), page-eval <expr> (Playwright page API) |
| Auth | login --env <name>, auth-state save/load <path> |
| Tabs | tab list/new/switch/close |
| Assert | assert visible/text-contains/url-contains/..., assert-ai "<visual assertion>" |
| Accessibility | a11y (full page), a11y @eN (element), a11y --standard wcag2aa, a11y --json, a11y coverage, a11y tree, a11y tab-order, a11y headings |
| Performance | perf (Core Web Vitals), perf --budget lcp=2500,cls=0.1, perf --json |
| Security | security (headers, cookies, mixed content), security --json |
| Responsive | responsive (multi-viewport screenshots), responsive --breakpoints 320x568,1920x1080, responsive --url <url> |
| Extract | extract table <sel> (--csv, --json), extract links (--filter), extract meta, extract select <sel> (--attr) |
| Flows | flow list, flow <name> --var key=value (--reporter junit|json|markdown, --dry-run, --stream, --webhook <url>), healthcheck (--reporter junit|json|markdown, --parallel, --concurrency, --webhook <url>), test-matrix --roles r1,r2 --flow <name>, diff --baseline <url> --current <url> |
| Sessions | session list/create/close, --session <name> on any command |
| Tracing | trace start (--screenshots, --snapshots), trace stop --out <path>, trace view [<path>] --latest --port <n>, trace list, trace status |
| Video | video start [--size WxH], video stop [--out <path>], video status, video list |
| Crawl | crawl <url> (--depth, --extract table|links|meta|text, --paginate, --rate-limit, --output, --dry-run) |
| Record | record start (--output, --name), record stop, record pause/resume |
| Network Sim | throttle <preset|off|status> (slow-3g, 3g, 4g, wifi, cable), offline on/off |
| NL Commands | do "<instruction>" (--dry-run, --provider, --model) |
| VRT | vrt init, vrt baseline, vrt check (--threshold), vrt update (--all), vrt list |
| SEO | seo [url] (--check, --score, --json) |
| Compliance | compliance [url] (--standard gdpr|ccpa|eprivacy, --json) |
| Security Scan | security-scan (--checks xss,csp,clickjack,forms, --verbose, --json) |
| i18n | i18n --locales en,fr,de --url <url>, i18n check-keys, i18n rtl-check |
| API Assert | api-assert <url-pattern> (--status, --timing, --schema, --body-contains, --header) |
| Design | design-audit --tokens <file>, design-audit --extract |
| Doc Capture | doc-capture --flow <file> --output <dir> (--markdown, --update) |
| Gestures | gesture swipe <dir>, gesture long-press @eN, gesture double-tap @eN, gesture drag @eN --to @eN |
| Devices | devices list, devices search <query>, devices info <name> |
| Monitor | monitor check --config <file>, monitor history, monitor status |
| Dev Server | dev start, dev stop, dev status |
| CI/CD | ci-init (--ci github|gitlab|circleci) |
| Events | subscribe (--events navigation,console,network, --level, --idle-timeout) |
| Watch/REPL | watch <flow-file>, repl |
| Tooling | init, report --out <path>, replay --out <path>, flow-share export/import/list/install/publish, screenshots list/clean/count, completions bash/zsh/fish, status [--json] [--watch] [--exit-code] |
Run browse help <command> for flags and detailed usage — don't guess at flags.
Named sessions
Use named sessions to run multiple independent page groups:
browse session create worker-1 # shared context (same cookies/storage)
browse session create worker-2 --isolated # isolated context (separate cookies/storage)
browse --session worker-1 goto https://a.com
browse --session worker-2 goto https://b.com
browse session list
browse session close worker-1
By default, sessions share the browser context. Use --isolated for fully separate cookies, storage, and permissions.
Authentication
Configured login (preferred — uses browse.config.json):
browse login --env staging
Manual login:
browse goto https://app.example.com/login
browse snapshot
browse fill @e1 "user@example.com"
browse fill @e2 "password123"
browse click @e3
browse snapshot # verify redirect / dashboard loaded
Session reuse — save after login, load in future sessions:
browse auth-state save /tmp/auth.json
browse auth-state load /tmp/auth.json
Use browse wipe to clear all session data before switching accounts or at the end of a session.
Visual diff
Compare screenshots against a baseline to detect visual regressions:
browse screenshot current.png --diff baseline.png
browse screenshot current.png --diff baseline.png --threshold 5
Output includes similarity percentage, diff pixel count, and a path to the diff image (changed pixels highlighted in red).
Multi-browser
Browse defaults to Chromium. Use --browser to switch:
browse --browser firefox goto https://example.com
browse --browser webkit goto https://example.com
BROWSE_BROWSER=firefox browse goto https://example.com
Stealth features and CDP console capture are Chromium-only; Firefox/WebKit use standard Playwright.
Proxy
Route browser traffic through a proxy:
browse --proxy http://proxy:8080 goto https://example.com
BROWSE_PROXY=socks5://proxy:1080 browse goto https://example.com
Or configure in browse.config.json with "proxy": { "server": "http://proxy:8080", "bypass": "localhost", "username": "u", "password": "p" }.
Playwright passthrough
Pass any Playwright launch or context option via browse.config.json without waiting for explicit browse support:
{
"playwright": {
"launchOptions": { "locale": "fr-FR", "timezoneId": "Europe/Paris" },
"contextOptions": { "colorScheme": "dark", "geolocation": { "latitude": 48.86, "longitude": 2.35 } }
}
}
launchOptions are applied at browser startup; contextOptions are applied to isolated sessions and video recording contexts. Browse's own options (headless, viewport, stealth) take precedence on conflict.
Headed mode
Launch the browser visibly for debugging (set before the daemon starts):
BROWSE_HEADED=1 browse goto https://example.com
Timeout control
Any command accepts --timeout <ms> (default 30s). Use for slow pages:
browse goto https://slow-page.example.com --timeout 60000
Error recovery
| Error | Fix |
|---|
"element is outside of the viewport" | Run browse scroll @eN to scroll it into view, then retry |
"Refs are stale" / "Unknown ref" | Run browse snapshot to refresh refs |
"Daemon connection lost" | Re-run the command — CLI auto-restarts the daemon |
"Command timed out after Nms" | Use --timeout 60000, or check the URL |
"Daemon crashed and recovery failed" | Run browse quit, then retry |
"Unknown command" for a valid command | Stale daemon — run browse quit, then retry |
"Unknown flag" | Check browse help <cmd> for valid flags |
| Login fails | Check env vars, verify login URL, browse screenshot to see the page |
