browsing

Browsing with Chrome Direct

Overview

Control Chrome via DevTools Protocol using the use_browser MCP tool. Single unified interface with auto-starting Chrome.

Announce: "I'm using the browsing skill to control Chrome."

When to Use

Use this when:

• Controlling authenticated sessions
• Managing multiple tabs in running browser
• Playwright MCP unavailable or excessive

Use Playwright MCP when:

• Need fresh browser instances
• Generating screenshots/PDFs
• Prefer higher-level abstractions

Auto-Capture

Every DOM action (navigate, click, type, select, eval, keyboard_press, hover, drag_drop, double_click, right_click, file_upload) automatically saves:

• {prefix}.png — viewport screenshot
• {prefix}.md — page content as structured markdown
• {prefix}.html — full rendered DOM
• {prefix}-console.txt — browser console messages

Files are saved to the session directory with sequential prefixes (001-navigate, 002-click, etc.). You must check these before using extract or screenshot actions.

The use_browser Tool

Single MCP tool with action-based interface. Chrome auto-starts on first use.

Parameters:

• action (required): Operation to perform
• selector (optional): CSS or XPath selector for element operations
• payload (optional): Action-specific data (string or object)
• timeout (optional): Timeout in ms for await operations (default: 5000)

Active tab: Every action operates on the current activeTab. Use switch_tab to change it.

Actions Reference

Navigation

• navigate: Navigate to URL

  • payload: URL string
  • Example: {action: "navigate", payload: "https://example.com"}

• await_element: Wait for element to appear

  • selector: CSS selector
  • timeout: Max wait time in ms
  • Example: {action: "await_element", selector: ".loaded", timeout: 10000}

• await_text: Wait for text to appear

  • payload: Text to wait for
  • Example: {action: "await_text", payload: "Welcome"}

Interaction

• click: Click element
  • selector: CSS selector
  • Example: {action: "click", selector: "button.submit"}