byob

Bring Your Own Browser — let your AI assistant use the Chrome you already have open.

English · 中文

byob is a local MCP server that lets AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf, etc.) directly control your real Chrome — the one where you're already logged into everything.

"read my Twitter timeline and summarize the top 5 posts"
"google 'mcp protocol spec', click the first result, read the page"
"take a screenshot of example.com"
"grab my GitHub session cookie so I can curl with it"
"open my Gmail tab and tell me how many unread"
"fill in this form with my details and submit it"

Compared with tools that attach over Chrome's remote-debugging port (DevTools MCP, agent-browser, Playwright --cdp): byob is an extension, so there's no debugging port to open, no "Allow remote debugging?" prompt on every connection, and nothing else on your machine can hijack your logged-in browser through it.

Install

Quick install (recommended)

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wxtsky/byob/main/install.sh | bash

On Windows, run the same command from Git Bash or MSYS2. The script checks prerequisites (Node.js ≥ 20, bun, Chrome/Edge/Brave), clones the repo, builds everything, and walks you through MCP registration interactively. If bun is not installed, it offers to install it for you using the native installer for your OS.

Set BYOB_INSTALL_DIR to change the install location (default: ~/byob). Advanced: BYOB_REPO, BYOB_REF, and BYOB_SKIP_SETUP=1 are supported for forks, pinned refs, and CI-style dependency install only.

Manual install

Requires Node.js ≥ 20, bun, Chrome, and any MCP-compatible AI tool.

git clone https://github.com/wxtsky/byob
cd byob
bun install
bun run setup

bun run setup walks through the install interactively:

1. Pick output language (English / 中文)
2. Generates a unique extension key for you
3. Builds the Chrome extension
4. Writes the config that lets Chrome talk to byob
5. Prompts you to multi-select your AI tools. Claude Code gets the bundled plugin (Skill + auto-started MCP); other clients get their MCP config.

After the script finishes, three manual steps remain:

Step 2 — Load extension in Chrome

Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.

1. Top-right → turn ON Developer mode
2. Top-left → click Load unpacked
3. Select the folder printed in your terminal, something like:

   /your/path/to/byob/packages/extension/output/chrome-mv3
   

Step 3 — Restart Chrome

Quit Chrome completely (⌘Q on Mac / close all windows on Windows), then reopen.

Closing a single tab or window is not sufficient — Chrome only reads the Native Messaging config at startup.

Step 4 — Claude Code plugin / manual MCP reference

The setup script registers your selected tools automatically. The block below is for reference only — use it if you skipped the prompt or want to register a different tool later:

claude plugin marketplace add wxtsky/byob
claude plugin install byob@byob --scope user

Run /reload-plugins in Claude Code after installing. The plugin includes the /byob:control-chrome Skill and starts its bundled MCP server automatically; do not also register a second byob MCP server.

For local development without installing:

claude --plugin-dir /path/to/byob/plugins/byob

claude mcp add byob -s user -- /path/to/tsx /path/to/byob-mcp.ts

To enable browser_evaluate, add -e BYOB_ALLOW_EVAL=1 after -s user.

codex mcp add byob -- /path/to/tsx /path/to/byob-mcp.ts

Add to .cursor/mcp.json (project) or ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "byob": {
      "command": "/path/to/tsx",
      "args": ["/path/to/byob-mcp.ts"]
    }
  }
}

Add to ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json (same JSON format as Cursor):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "byob": {
      "command": "/path/to/tsx",
      "args": ["/path/to/byob-mcp.ts"]
    }
  }
}

Open Cline sidebar → MCP Servers → Configure, then add (same JSON format):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "byob": {
      "command": "/path/to/tsx",
      "args": ["/path/to/byob-mcp.ts"]
    }
  }
}

The actual paths are printed by the setup script. The examples above use shortened paths for readability.
To enable browser_evaluate, add "env": { "BYOB_ALLOW_EVAL": "1" } to the config (or -e BYOB_ALLOW_EVAL=1 for CLI tools).

Step 5 — Wait for setup to confirm the bridge is online

After you finish steps 2 and 3 (load the extension and ⌘Q-restart Chrome), setup auto-detects the bridge coming online and prints ✓ bridge online. The installation is complete — open a new session in your AI tool and try "use byob to read ...".

If you exited setup early with Ctrl+C, or want to check the state later:

bun run doctor

bun run doctor prints actionable fixes under every ✗ (e.g. "⌘Q-restart Chrome", "extension ID mismatch", etc.).

Tools

v0.5 has 25 tools. Elements are targeted by refs from the snapshot ([ref=e12]), a CSS selector, or x/y.

Schemas: shared/src/tools.ts. Upgrading from 0.4? Tool names changed — see the changelog.

How it works

AI tool → byob-mcp → byob-bridge → Chrome extension → your tab
         (stdio)    (Unix socket) (Native Messaging) (Chrome DevTools Protocol)

• byob's own page scripts run in an isolated world: they share the DOM but not JavaScript with the page — no window.__byob*, no data-byob-* attributes, nothing a site can see or tamper with.
• Refs live in the extension's memory, bound to Chrome's backend node ids; they survive re-renders and are refused (never silently re-targeted) after navigation.
• Each MCP client session has its own working tab; tabs the agent opens are grouped under byob and never steal focus.

All communication stays local. No data leaves your machine. When Chrome closes, all byob processes exit automatically.

Everyday commands

bun run setup      # install or re-install
bun run doctor     # check what's working
bun run bridges    # list running bridge processes
bun run logs       # tail the bridge log
bun run unsetup    # remove everything
bun run policy     # show / change which sites byob may touch (flags below)

All run from the byob repo root.

Reliability

• Auto-waiting actions. Before clicking or typing, byob waits until the element is attached, visible, stable, enabled and actually on top at its center; errors say what's wrong ("covered by <div#cookie-banner>").
• Actions report their effects — navigation (waited for), same-page URL changes, new tabs, JS d