web-backend

A guide to the managed software backend used for web automation, meaning automated interaction with websites.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to set up or diagnose the web automation backend, especially in CI or sandbox environments, and to handle its Node.js version requirements.
Why use it?
It helps avoid stale or missing installations and explains the setup and runtime requirements needed for web commands to work.

Agent

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add agents/callstack/agent-device/web-backend
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/callstack/agent-device
Per session 0 Only the description is in the session, so the agent can decide to use it. The body loads when it is invoked.
When invoked 459 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.00459
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00230
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00092
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00046

Measured yesterday against content hash bf1ff67eddea, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

web-backend scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Runs shell commandslowCapability

Expected in a hook, worth knowing in a rule or an instructions file.

`child_process.spawn` refuses without a shell (CVE-2024-27980 hardening), and a shell would
docs/agents/web-backend.md · 35 lines

What it actually says

Web Backend

Web automation uses a managed agent-browser backend as an implementation detail.

  • Runtime web commands resolve the backend only from the state-dir managed install at tools/agent-browser/<version>.
  • Normal --platform web commands do not install the managed backend on first use. If the backend is missing, they fail with a setup hint.
  • Use agent-device web setup before first web automation and in CI/sandbox bootstrap steps.
  • Use agent-device web doctor to run the backend health check.
  • The managed install respects --state-dir / AGENT_DEVICE_STATE_DIR.
  • Web automation requires Node 24+ while the rest of agent-device keeps its Node 22 baseline.
  • Every backend call spawns the package's declared bin entry with the current Node runtime, never the node_modules/.bin console shim: Windows ships that shim as .cmd, which child_process.spawn refuses without a shell (CVE-2024-27980 hardening), and a shell would reintroduce argument-quoting hazards. runManagedAgentBrowser is the only path that executes the backend. Setup spawns npm from PATH as before, except on Windows, where a bare npm is not spawnable and npm's own npm-cli.js runs under the current Node instead.

Default first-run flow:

agent-device web setup
agent-device open "https://example.com" --platform web
agent-device snapshot -i --platform web
agent-device viewport 1280 900 --platform web
agent-device screenshot ./artifacts/web-full.png --platform web --fullscreen
agent-device network dump 25 --platform web
agent-device close --platform web

Do not document direct agent-browser commands as agent-device features. Web network dump is the narrow exception: it adapts agent-browser network requests to the existing agent-device network evidence shape. Browser-specific network routing/interception/HAR, CDP, React web, tabs, downloads, auth vaults, and profiling stay out of the minimal web surface until there is an explicit agent-device command design for them.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 35 lines · 0 tokens per session scan A bf1ff67eddea

Subscribe to this mod's changes

web-backend is an agent published in the GitHub repository callstack/agent-device (4,300 stars, last pushed today), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 459 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (runs shell commands). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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