browser-automation-agent

Browser Automation with Agent-Browser

Agent-browser is a headless browser automation CLI designed specifically for AI agents. It provides fast browser control with deterministic element selection through accessibility tree snapshots, making it ideal for agent-driven web automation workflows.

When to use

• Use case 1: When the user asks to automate web interactions (fill forms, click buttons, navigate sites)
• Use case 2: When you need to capture screenshots or generate PDFs of web pages
• Use case 3: For web scraping tasks that require JavaScript rendering or complex interactions
• Use case 4: When building automation workflows that need deterministic element references
• Use case 5: For testing web applications with agent-driven scenarios

Required tools / APIs

• No external API required (runs locally)
• agent-browser: Headless browser CLI with Rust/Node.js implementation
• Chromium: Downloaded automatically during installation

Install options:

# via npm (global)
npm install -g agent-browser
agent-browser install  # Downloads Chromium

# via Homebrew (macOS/Linux)
brew install agent-browser

# Verify installation
agent-browser --version

Skills

browser_open_and_snapshot

Open a URL and capture the accessibility tree to identify interactive elements.

# Open a webpage
agent-browser open https://example.com

# Get snapshot with element references
agent-browser snapshot

# The snapshot shows elements with @e1, @e2 references
# Example output:
# @e1 button "Sign In"
# @e2 input "Email" (email)
# @e3 input "Password" (password)

Node.js:

const { execSync } = require('child_process');

function browserCommand(cmd) {
  return execSync(`agent-browser ${cmd}`, { encoding: 'utf-8' });
}

async function openAndSnapshot(url) {
  browserCommand(`open ${url}`);
  await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 2000)); // Wait for page load
  const snapshot = browserCommand('snapshot');
  return snapshot; // Returns element tree with references
}

// Usage
// const elements = await openAndSnapshot('https://example.com');
// console.log(elements);