rodney

name

rodney

description

Drive headless Chrome from the CLI for web scraping, screenshots, form filling, PDF export, accessibility audits, and browser smoke tests. Use when the user wants to automate browser interactions, scrape dynamic pages (JS-rendered content), take page screenshots or element screenshots, fill and submit web forms, export pages as PDF, run accessibility checks, or assert page state in CI/CD pipelines. Triggers on mentions of: browser automation, headless Chrome, web scraping, page screenshots, form automation, accessibility testing, browser testing, rodney.

Rodney — Chrome Automation

Rodney drives a persistent headless Chrome instance from the terminal. All commands share one long-running Chrome process — cookies, localStorage, and navigation state persist across invocations.

⚠️ Usage: CLI Only — NOT an MCP Tool

Rodney is a CLI tool, not an MCP server. Use it via the bash tool only. Never call mcp("rodney").

Every rodney session follows this pattern via bash:

rodney start                              # 1. Launch Chrome
rodney open <url>                         # 2. Navigate
rodney waitstable                         # 3. Wait for page to settle
# ... interact, scrape, screenshot ...     # 4. Do your work
rodney stop                               # 5. ALWAYS stop when done

Important:

• Call each command as a separate bash invocation (e.g. rodney start, then rodney open <url>, etc.)
• Always rodney stop when finished — otherwise Chrome runs forever
• Combine start → open → waitstable → work → stop in every workflow

Install

uv tool install rodney

Requires Chrome or Chromium. Set ROD_CHROME_BIN if not at default location.

Project Setup

To add rodney to a project, add this to the project's AGENTS.md:

## Browser Automation

Use rodney for headless Chrome automation (scraping, screenshots, forms, PDFs, a11y, smoke tests).

### Setup
1. Install: `uv tool install rodney`
2. Verify: `rodney start && rodney stop`
3. Link skill: `ln -s /path/to/skale-skills/skills/rodney .pi/skills/rodney`

### Usage
```bash
rodney start
rodney open https://example.com
rodney waitstable
rodney screenshot page.png
rodney stop

## Quick Start

```bash
rodney start                          # Launch headless Chrome
rodney start --show                   # Launch visible Chrome (for debugging)
rodney open https://example.com       # Navigate
rodney text "h1"                      # Extract text
rodney screenshot page.png            # Screenshot
rodney stop                           # Shut down

Commands

Navigation & Waiting

rodney open <url>           # Navigate (auto-adds http://)
rodney back                 # Go back
rodney forward              # Go forward
rodney reload [--hard]      # Reload (bypass cache with --hard)
rodney wait <selector>      # Wait for element to appear
rodney waitload             # Wait for page load event
rodney waitstable           # Wait until DOM stops changing
rodney waitidle             # Wait for network idle
rodney sleep <seconds>      # Fixed delay

Content Extraction

rodney title                        # Page title
rodney url                          # Current URL
rodney text <selector>              # Text content (one per match)
rodney html [selector]              # HTML (full page or element)
rodney attr <selector> <name>       # Attribute value
rodney js <expression>              # Evaluate JS, return result

Screenshots & PDFs

rodney screenshot [-w N -h N] [file]         # Viewport screenshot
rodney screenshot-el <selector> [file]        # Element screenshot
rodney pdf [file]                             # Export as PDF

Interaction

rodney click <selector>            # Click element
rodney input <selector> <text>     # Type into input
rodney clear <selector>            # Clear input
rodney select <selector> <value>   # Select dropdown option
rodney submit <selector>           # Submit form
rodney hover <selector>            # Hover
rodney file <selector> <path>      # Set file on file input
rodney download <selector> [file]  # Download href/src target

Tabs

rodney pages                # List tabs (* marks active)
rodney page <index>         # Switch tab
rodney newpage [url]        # Open new tab
rodney closepage [index]    # Close tab

Assertions (exit 1 on failure)

rodney exists <selector>                        # Element exists?
rodney visible <selector>                       # Element visible?
rodney count <selector>                         # Count matches
rodney assert <expr> [expected] [-m msg]        # JS truthy or equality check

Accessibility

rodney ax-tree [--depth N] [--json]             # Dump accessibility tree
rodney ax-find [--name N] [--role R] [--json]   # Find accessible nodes
rodney ax-node <selector> [--json]              # Element accessibility info

Sessions

Type	State	Flag
Global	~/.rodney/	default
Local	./.rodney/	--local

Use --local for per-project isolation. Auto-detects local if ./.rodney/state.json exists.

Environment

Variable	Default	Purpose
ROD_CHROME_BIN	auto	Chrome binary path
ROD_TIMEOUT	30	Element query timeout (seconds)
RODNEY_HOME	~/.rodney	Data directory

Gotchas

• Always rodney stop when done — otherwise a Chrome process lingers indefinitely.
• waitstable is preferred over waitload for SPAs and dynamic pages — waitload only fires on initial navigation, not on client-side renders.
• js results are stringified — arrays and objects come back as JSON strings. Pipe through python3 -m json.tool or use --json flags where available.
• js does NOT support multi-line expressions — it takes a single string argument. For complex logic, chain calls or use IIFEs on one line: rodney js "(function(){ var els = document.querySelectorAll('.item'); return els[0].innerText; })()"
• Selectors are CSS only — no XPath. Use rodney js for complex queries.
• One Chrome process per session — calling rodney start while already running is a no-op, not an error.
• open auto-adds http:// — for https:// URLs, include the scheme explicitly.
• Exit codes: 0 = success, 1 = assertion failed, 2 = error (bad args, timeout, no browser).
• Heavy React apps (booking sites, SPAs with autocomplete dropdowns) may timeout on click/input. Workaround: use the site's public API directly (most airlines, travel sites have one), or use rodney js to set values programmatically.

References

• references/commands.md — Full command reference with all flags and options. Read when you need details on a specific command.
• references/examples.md — Ready-to-use workflow scripts for scraping, form filling, smoke tests, and accessibility audits.
• references/debugging.md — Non-obvious debugging patterns: screenshot time-series, form validation checks, exit code chaining, and visible-mode debugging.
• references/dev-workflow.md — Dev loop: reload-assess-iterate, page inspection without screenshots, DOM structure, accessibility tree, layout queries.