Browser Automation with agent-browser

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name: agent-browser

description: Headless browser automation CLI for AI agents. Use when interacting with websites — navigating pages, filling forms, clicking buttons, taking screenshots, extracting data, scraping, testing web apps, downloading files, or automating any browser task. Triggers on requests to "open a website", "fill out a form", "click a button", "take a screenshot", "scrape data", "test this web app", "login to a site", "monitor a page", or any task requiring programmatic web interaction.

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# Browser Automation with agent-browser

Setup

Run `scripts/setup.sh` to install agent-browser and Chromium. Requires Node.js.

Core Workflow

Every browser automation follows this pattern:

1. **Navigate**: `agent-browser open <url>`

2. **Snapshot**: `agent-browser snapshot -i` (get element refs like `@e1`, `@e2`)

3. **Interact**: Use refs to click, fill, select

4. **Re-snapshot**: After navigation or DOM changes, get fresh refs

agent-browser open https://example.com/form
agent-browser snapshot -i
# Output: @e1 [input type="email"], @e2 [input type="password"], @e3 [button] "Submit"

agent-browser fill @e1 "user@example.com"
agent-browser fill @e2 "password123"
agent-browser click @e3
agent-browser wait --load networkidle
agent-browser snapshot -i  # Check result

Command Chaining

Chain with `&&` when you don't need intermediate output:

agent-browser open https://example.com && agent-browser wait --load networkidle && agent-browser snapshot -i

Run separately when you need to parse output first (e.g., snapshot to discover refs).

Essential Commands

# Navigate
agent-browser open <url>
agent-browser close

# See the page (always do this first)
agent-browser snapshot -i              # Interactive elements with refs
agent-browser snapshot -i -C           # Include onclick divs

# Interact using @refs
agent-browser click @e1
agent-browser fill @e2 "text"
agent-browser select @e1 "option"
agent-browser press Enter
agent-browser scroll down 500

# Get info
agent-browser get text @e1
agent-browser get url
agent-browser get title

# Wait
agent-browser wait @e1                 # For element
agent-browser wait --load networkidle  # For network idle

# Capture
agent-browser screenshot page.png
agent-browser screenshot --full        # Full page
agent-browser pdf output.pdf

For the full command reference, see `references/commands.md`.

Ref Lifecycle (Important)

Refs (`@e1`, `@e2`) are invalidated when the page changes. Always re-snapshot after:

Common Patterns

Form Submission

agent-browser open https://example.com/signup
agent-browser snapshot -i
agent-browser fill @e1 "Jane Doe"
agent-browser fill @e2 "jane@example.com"
agent-browser select @e3 "California"
agent-browser click @e5
agent-browser wait --load networkidle

Login with State Persistence

agent-browser open https://app.example.com/login
agent-browser snapshot -i
agent-browser fill @e1 "$USERNAME" && agent-browser fill @e2 "$PASSWORD"
agent-browser click @e3
agent-browser wait --url "**/dashboard"
agent-browser state save auth.json

# Reuse later
agent-browser state load auth.json
agent-browser open https://app.example.com/dashboard

Data Extraction

agent-browser open https://example.com/products
agent-browser snapshot -i
agent-browser get text @e5
agent-browser get text body > page.txt

Screenshot & Diff

agent-browser screenshot baseline.png
# ... changes happen ...
agent-browser diff screenshot --baseline baseline.png

Parallel Sessions

agent-browser --session site1 open https://site-a.com
agent-browser --session site2 open https://site-b.com
agent-browser session list

Security (Optional)

export AGENT_BROWSER_CONTENT_BOUNDARIES=1          # Wrap output for AI safety
export AGENT_BROWSER_ALLOWED_DOMAINS="example.com"  # Domain allowlist
export AGENT_BROWSER_MAX_OUTPUT=50000               # Prevent context flooding

Cleanup

Always close sessions when done: `agent-browser close`