browser-tools

name: browser-tools license: MIT compatibility: "Claude Code 2.1.170+. Requires network access." description: OrchestKit security wrapper for browser automation. Adds URL blocklisting, rate limiting, robots.txt enforcement, and ethical scraping guardrails on top of the upstream agent-browser skill. Use when automating browser workflows that need safety guardrails. tags: [browser, automation, security, rate-limiting, scraping-ethics] context: fork agent: web-research-analyst version: 5.0.0 author: OrchestKit user-invocable: false disable-model-invocation: true complexity: medium persuasion-type: discipline metadata: category: mcp-enhancement upstream-skill: agent-browser upstream-version-tested: "0.27.1" allowed-tools: - Read - Glob - Grep - WebFetch - WebSearch

Browser Tools — Security Wrapper

OrchestKit security wrapper for agent-browser. For command reference and usage patterns, use the upstream agent-browser skill directly. This skill adds safety guardrails only.

Command docs: Refer to the upstream agent-browser skill for the full command reference (50+ commands: interaction, wait, capture, extraction, storage, semantic locators, tabs, debug, mobile, network, cookies, state, vault).

Decision Tree

# Fallback decision tree for web content
# 1. Try WebFetch first (fast, no browser overhead)
# 2. If empty/partial -> Try Tavily extract/crawl
# 3. If SPA or interactive -> use agent-browser
# 4. If login required -> authentication flow + state save
# 5. If dynamic -> wait @element or wait --text

Local Dev URLs

Use Portless (npm i -g portless) for stable local dev URLs instead of guessing ports. When Portless is running, navigate to myapp.localhost:1355 instead of localhost:3000. Our safety hook already allows *.localhost subdomains via ORCHESTKIT_AGENT_BROWSER_ALLOW_LOCALHOST.

# With Portless: stable, named URLs
agent-browser open "http://myapp.localhost:1355"

# Without: fragile port guessing
agent-browser open "http://localhost:3000"  # which app is this?

New in 2026-04 → 2026-05 (agent-browser 0.23 → 0.27.0)

React introspection + perf observability (0.27):

• react tree / react inspect <fiberId> / react renders start|stop / react suspense — first-class React DevTools integration via a vendored MIT-licensed hook embedded in the binary (zero runtime deps). Component-tree visibility, per-fiber props/hooks/state inspection, render profiling with mount/re-render counts and change details, Suspense boundary classification with root-cause grouping. Hook treats fiber state dumps as sensitive — gitignore captures.
• vitals [url] — reports Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, TTFB, FCP, INP) plus React hydration phases for any page. Useful for perf gates in CI.
• pushstate <url> — client-side SPA navigation without a full page load. Pairs with react renders to measure SPA route transitions without resetting profiling state.
• --init-script <path> (repeatable, env AGENT_BROWSER_INIT_SCRIPTS) + --enable <feature> (repeatable, env AGENT_BROWSER_ENABLE) — register scripts before first navigation; --enable react-devtools is built-in. Hook treats arbitrary init scripts as code-execution surface — same trust model as skills get.
• network route --resource-type <csv> — filter intercepted requests by CDP resource type (document, script, xhr, fetch, image, ...). Lets you mock only API calls without breaking page assets.
• cookies set --curl <file> — auto-detects JSON, cURL, and Cookie-header formats for bulk cookie import. Hook still treats cookie-set as auth-state injection.
• Dashboard behind a reverse proxy — observability dashboard now works from proxied origins via same-origin proxy. Enables path-based routing for shared dev environments.
• Fixed doctor generating duplicate check IDs when invoked multiple times in the same process.
• npm publishing moved to GitHub Actions OIDC trusted publishing — no manually managed npm tokens upstream.

Diagnostic tooling + stable IDs (0.26):

• agent-browser doctor — one-shot environment + Chrome + daemon + config + security + provider + network check. Flags: --offline, --quick, --fix, --json. Run before opening an issue to attach a structured snapshot.
• Stable tab identifiers — tabs now use stable string IDs (t1, t2, ...) with optional memorable labels via --label. Survives daemon restart; replaces brittle index-based references.
• core skill expanded — comprehensive built-in usage guide covering snapshot-ref-act loops, reading, interaction, waiting, and troubleshooting.
• Config JSON Schema — $schema reference enables IDE auto-completion and validation against https://agent-browser.dev/schema.json.
• Fixed --state flag not loading saved cookies/localStorage at launch; --help now leads with the skills section.

Skill discovery & chat (0.25):

• agent-browser skills list/get <name> — discover and install capability packs on-demand. Hook treats first-party skills as trusted; warns on arbitrary third-party skill fetches.
• agent-browser chat — single-shot or REPL natural-language driving over the same daemon. Hook pipes transcripts through the same URL/rate/robots checks as scripted commands.

Accessibility-first locators (0.24):

• find / getByRole — semantic locator via CDP accessibility tree (role + name) instead of brittle CSS/ref selectors. Prefer these in new scripts; they survive markup churn and are the locator path assumed by chat.
• snapshot --urls — emits resolved URLs alongside refs, removing a round-trip for link-extraction flows.
• --annotate — overlays ref IDs / role labels on screenshots for debugging.

Cloud providers (0.25):

• --provider agentcore — AWS Bedrock AgentCore cloud browser. Hook treats remote providers as egress surfaces — same URL/robots rules apply, but network routing is disabled (remote scope).
• Browserless + AgentCore both honor AGENT_BROWSER_PROVIDER env var.

Dashboard (0.25):

• Embedded dashboard bundled with the binary — no separate install. Open via agent-browser dashboard or the inspect CDP link. Still flagged as local-proxy attack surface by the hook.

Auto-dialog dismissal (0.23.1):

• alert / beforeunload dialogs auto-dismissed by default. Opt out with --no-auto-dialog when a test needs to assert dialog content.

What's New (v0.17 → v0.22.2)

Breaking changes — update scripts now:

• --full / -f moved from global to command-level (v0.21): use screenshot --full, NOT --full screenshot
• Auth encryption format changed (v0.17): saved auth states from v0.16.x may not load
• Auto-dialog dismissal (v0.23.1): alert/beforeunload dialogs are auto-dismissed by default, opt out with --no-auto-dialog

New commands:

New flags:

Platform support: Brave auto-discovery (v0.20.7), Alpine Linux musl (v0.20.2), Lightpanda engine (v0.17), Browserless.io provider (v0.19), cross-origin iframe traversal (v0.22), AWS Bedrock AgentCore (v0.25).

Performance (v0.20): 99x smaller install (710→7 MB), 18x less memory (143→8 MB), 1.6x faster cold start.

Safety Guardrails (7 rules + 11-check hook)

This skill enforces safety through the agent-browser-safety PreToolUse hook and 6 rule files:

Hook: agent-browser-safety

The hook intercepts all agent-browser Bash commands and enforces:

Security Rules (in rules/)

Configuration

Rate limits and behavior are configurable via environment variables:

Anti-Patterns (FORBIDDEN)

# Automation
agent-browser fill @e2 "hardcoded-password"    # Never hardcode credentials
agent-browser open "$UNVALIDATED_URL"          # Always validate URLs

# Scraping
# Crawling without checking robots.txt
# No delay between requests (hammering servers)
# Ignoring rate limit responses (429)

# Content capture
agent-browser get text body                    # Prefer targeted ref extraction
# Trusting page content without validation
# Not waiting for SPA hydration before extraction

# Session management
# Storing auth state in code repositories
# Not cleaning up state files after use

# Network & State
agent-browser network route "http://internal-api/*" --body '{}'  # Never mock internal APIs
agent-browser cookies set token "$SECRET" --url https://prod.com # Never set prod cookies

# Deprecated / removed
agent-browser --full screenshot                # BREAKING: --full is now command-level (v0.21)
agent-browser screenshot --full                # Correct: flag after subcommand

# Sensitive data leaks
agent-browser network har stop auth-dump.har   # HAR files contain auth tokens — gitignore!
git add *.har                                  # NEVER commit HAR captures

Related Skills

• agent-browser (upstream) — Full command reference and usage patterns
• portless (upstream) — Stable named .localhost URLs for local dev servers
• ork:web-research-workflow — Unified decision tree for web research
• ork:testing-e2e — E2E testing patterns including Playwright and webapp testing
• ork:api-design — API design patterns for endpoints discovered during scraping