stacks-browse

name	stacks-browse
description	Use for headless browser QA on Stacks applications — navigation, screenshots, responsive testing, console/network monitoring, and accessibility snapshots. Dependency-free: drives a system browser over the Chrome DevTools Protocol using only Bun (no Playwright/Puppeteer). Invoke with /stacks-browse.

/stacks-browse — Headless Browser QA (zero dependencies)

You are a QA engineer testing Stacks applications with a dependency-free headless browser driver. It uses no Playwright, no Puppeteer, no npm packages — it launches a Chromium-family browser already on the machine and drives it over the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) using only Bun's native Bun.spawn, fetch, and WebSocket.

The driver lives at storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts. Run it with bun:

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts <command> <url> [flags]

Every command prints a JSON result. Screenshots are written under storage/framework/runtime/shots/ by default; Read the PNG to view it.

Browser discovery (no install step)

The driver finds a browser at runtime in this order, and falls through to the next if one won't launch:

1. $BROWSE_BROWSER (explicit override — set to an absolute browser path)
2. PATH: chromium, google-chrome, brave-browser, microsoft-edge, …
3. macOS app bundles (Google Chrome, Chromium, Brave, Edge)
4. A Chromium binary already cached on disk (e.g. under ~/Library/Caches/ms-playwright) — the binary only is borrowed; Playwright is never imported.

A candidate is validated with --version before use, so a dead wrapper (e.g. a Homebrew shim pointing at an uninstalled .app) is skipped automatically. If none launch, it tells you to brew install --cask chromium or set BROWSE_BROWSER.

Default Stacks dev URLs

• Frontend: http://localhost:3000
• Backend API: http://localhost:3001
• Admin dashboard: http://localhost:3002
• Docs: http://localhost:3005
• API: http://localhost:3008

Pages with an open HMR/SSE connection never reach "network idle"; the driver waits for the load event (with a timeout) plus a short settle, so it won't hang on the dev server.

Commands

Navigate

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts navigate <url>

Reports: title, HTTP status of the main document, loadMs, consoleErrors, request count, and which browser was used.

Screenshot

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts screenshot <url> [--viewport 1280x900] [--full] [--element "SELECTOR"] [--scale 2] [--out path.png] [--cookie "name=value"] [--settle 1500]

• --full captures the entire scroll height (via Page.getLayoutMetrics + captureBeyondViewport).
• --element clips to a CSS selector's bounding box.
• --scale 2 renders at 2× (retina).
• --cookie pre-seeds cookies before navigation (repeatable). Use it for gated pages, e.g. the coming-soon bypass: --cookie "stacks_coming_soon_bypass=<secret>" --cookie "stacks_coming_soon_preview=<secret>".
• --settle waits N ms after the load event before capturing (default 700). Stretch it when the page has load-triggered entrance animations, or the shot can catch elements mid-fade.
• --scheme light|dark emulates prefers-color-scheme, so theme-aware pages (auto dark mode) can be captured in both schemes without changing the host OS setting.
• Default output: storage/framework/runtime/shots/<path>.png.

Responsive

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts responsive <url> [--out-dir DIR]

Full-page screenshot at each breakpoint and a horizontal-overflow check:

Device	Width	Height
Mobile S	320	568
Mobile L	428	926
Tablet	768	1024
Desktop	1280	720
Wide	1920	1080

Reports horizontalOverflowPx per breakpoint (0 = no overflow). Shots in storage/framework/runtime/shots/responsive/.

Monitor (console + network)

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts monitor <url> [--ms 5000]

Watches for --ms after load. Reports console errors/messages, failed requests (≥400), slow requests (>3s), and total requests.

Snapshot (accessibility / structure)

bun storage/framework/defaults/ai/skills/stacks-browse/scripts/browse.ts snapshot <url>

Extracts headings, links (text -> href), buttons, forms (action + field count), and ARIA landmarks — useful for auditing structure and catching broken links.

Stacks-Specific QA

When testing a Stacks app, check:

• Dashboard routes — admin pages rendering? (localhost:3002)
• API health — GET localhost:3008/health returns ok?
• Auth flow — /login, /register
• CMS/blog — /blog, post detail pages, /blog/feed.xml, /blog/sitemap.xml
• STX components — do custom components render server-side?
• Crosswind CSS — utility classes generating styles?
• Links — run snapshot and verify hrefs resolve (no /blog/index, no /api/blog/* 404s).

Rules

• No npm install. Never add Playwright/Puppeteer. The driver is self-contained.
• The browser is always killed in a finally block; a fresh temp profile per run (no shared cookies/sessions).
• Never submit forms with real data unless explicitly asked.
• Local URLs are fine (localhost, 127.0.0.1).
• Report what you see, not what you expect. Read the PNGs.

Extending

The CDP client (Cdp class in browse.ts) exposes send(method, params) and waitFor(event, predicate). New QA commands (click, fill, hover, PDF export, coverage) are a few lines each on top of Page.*, Input.*, Runtime.evaluate, and DOM.* — no new dependencies required.

Downstream

QA complete. Run /stacks-retro to review this development session.