pi-web-browse

name	pi-web-browse
description	Search the web and fetch/read pages via a real headless browser (CDP). Use this instead of curl when sites are JS-heavy or bot-protected. Works on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

Web Browse

Search the web, then open/fetch pages in a real browser session (headless Chromium via CDP) and extract readable text. Use this instead of curl when sites are JS-heavy or bot-protected.

Setup

Run once before first use:

cd {baseDir}
npm install

The skill auto-detects browsers already installed on your system (Brave, Chrome, Edge, Chromium). On Windows, Edge is pre-installed and works out of the box.

No browser installed? (rare) Run: npx playwright install chromium

Configuration (optional)

Environment variables:

Variable	Description
WEB_BROWSE_BROWSER_BIN	Path to browser binary (auto-detected if not set)
WEB_BROWSE_USER_AGENT	Override User-Agent string
WEB_BROWSE_DAEMON_PORT	Daemon port (default: 9377)
WEB_BROWSE_CDP_PORT	CDP port (default: 9225)
WEB_BROWSE_DEBUG_DUMP	Set to 1 to save screenshots/HTML on failures

You can also pass --browser-bin <path> as a CLI argument.

Usage

# Search (results are cached for ~10 minutes)
{baseDir}/web-browse.js "your query"
{baseDir}/web-browse.js "your query" -n 10

# Fetch specific cached results by index
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --fetch 1,3,5

# Fetch a specific URL
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --url <url>          # truncated (~2000 chars)
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --url <url> --full   # full content

Windows note: Use node {baseDir}/web-browse.js instead of {baseDir}/web-browse.js

Default behavior: persistent daemon (auto)

Direct calls automatically start/use a local daemon that keeps a persistent headless browser+CDP session. This avoids browser startup overhead and helps with bot-protection pages that auto-clear (e.g. Anubis PoW).

Daemon controls (optional, for debugging)

{baseDir}/web-browse.js --daemon status
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --daemon start
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --daemon stop
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --daemon restart

Bypass daemon (one-shot)

{baseDir}/web-browse.js --no-daemon --url https://example.com
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --no-daemon "your query"

Workflow

1. Search → see snippets → decide what to read
2. Fetch by index → --fetch 1,3 opens those results and extracts content

{baseDir}/web-browse.js "rust async runtime"  # shows results
{baseDir}/web-browse.js --fetch 1,3           # fetches result #1 and #3

Browser Support

The skill auto-detects installed browsers in this order:

Linux: brave, brave-browser, google-chrome, chromium macOS: Brave Browser, Google Chrome, Chromium, Microsoft Edge (in /Applications) Windows: Brave, Chrome, Edge, Chromium (common install paths)

To use a specific browser, set WEB_BROWSE_BROWSER_BIN or pass --browser-bin <path>.

Notes

• Content is truncated by default to save tokens; use --full for complete output.
• The daemon keeps a warm browser session for faster subsequent requests.
• CDP profile is stored in ~/.config/web-browse-cdp-profile/ (configurable via --cdp-profile).