open-web-bridge

Why not just a headless browser?

An agent that opens its own clean browser can only reach what is public.

An agent driving your browser can read the article behind your subscription, check the dashboard you are already signed into, and finish the flow that needs your identity. That is the whole point.

npm i -g open-web-bridge   # CLI + extension files + agent skill, one command
owb setup                  # walks you through the one step you must do yourself
owb                        # self-check — two ✓ and you are ready

Then just tell your agent: "open Hacker News and summarize the top three stories."

How it works

   AI agent               Claude Code · Codex · Kimi Code · anything with a shell
      │
      │  owb <command>    the CLI is the entire integration surface — zero client config
      ▼
   local daemon           Node.js on 127.0.0.1:43917
      │
      │  WebSocket
      ▼
   MV3 extension          installed in the browser you actually use
      │
      │  Chrome DevTools Protocol
      ▼
   your live tab          your cookies · your session · your fingerprint

Two deployment shapes:

• Local mode (default) — the chain above. Anything that can run a shell works with zero configuration, and a bundled skill teaches agents the typical workflows.
• Relay mode (optional) — the daemon and the extension both dial out to a public relay (Cloudflare Workers + Durable Objects, paired by token), so a remote agent can drive your browser without exposing any port on your machine. Off by default; enabling it does not change local mode. Jump to setup ↓

What it can do

Install

Requirements: Node.js ≥ 18 and a Chromium-based browser (Chrome or Edge).

Install open-web-bridge for me. Do these in order and tell me the result of each:

1. Run npm i -g open-web-bridge
2. Run owb setup, read me the "install the browser extension" step, and wait until I confirm I've done it
3. Run owb and confirm both the daemon and the extension show ✓. If the extension is not connected, tell me to click the extension icon in my browser toolbar and check its status
4. Run owb skill install, then tell me to start a new session

After that you can drive my browser with the owb command; owb help lists everything.

Manual install

npm i -g open-web-bridge     # CLI + extension files + skill, in one command
owb setup                    # walkthrough: extension path, skill install, self-check

owb setup tells you how to install the extension. That is the one step you have to do yourself — the extension has to go into the browser you actually use, because that is where your sessions are, which is the entire point of this project. No command line can do it for you.

Then run owb once as a self-check; two ✓ means you are ready. Finally owb skill install installs the skill for every agent it detects — Claude Code, Codex CLI, Kimi CLI, Qwen Code, iFlow CLI, Gemini CLI, OpenCode (~/.config/opencode/), Cursor (project-level only), and the shared ~/.agents/skills/. Detection is not a fixed list: any ~/.<tool>/skills/ or ~/.config/<tool>/skills/ that already exists counts too, so an agent released after this version still gets the skill without waiting for an owb release.

Use --to kimi,codex to pick agents yourself — any name works, one owb has never heard of installs to ~/.<name>/skills/ — --project to install into the current project only, or --dir <path> for anywhere else. --link symlinks the package's skill source instead of copying it, so a later npm i -g open-web-bridge@latest updates every installed copy on its own — it falls back to a copy wherever symlinks are unavailable. For an agent with no skills directory at all, owb skill print writes SKILL.md to stdout, ready to paste into whatever rules file it does read.

Installing the skill with npx skills

The skill is a plain Agent Skill, so npx skills — which knows 75+ agents — can install it straight from this repository:

npx skills add woniu9524/open-web-bridge -g -y

That installs the skill and nothing else; the agent bootstraps the rest (npm i -g open-web-bridge, then owb setup) the first time it reads it.

Later, owb update check compares your install against npm and prints the upgrade steps when a newer version exists — the skill also teaches agents to run it at the end of a session, so you hear about updates without asking.

The skill

Progressive disclosure, and skill install copies the whole directory:

owb/SKILL.md                     the trunk — enters context on every trigger
owb/references/commands.md       arguments for all 80 commands
owb/references/recipes.md        longer per-task procedures
owb/references/debugging.md      capture / HAR / hooks / breakpoints / reverse engineering
owb/references/field-notes.md    real-world oddities, indexed by symptom
owb/references/relay.md          relay mode setup

Only SKILL.md is always loaded; the agent reads the rest when it needs them. Other agents can simply concatenate these markdown files into their rules or system prompt — there is no proprietary format.

Try it

Tell your agent something like "open Hacker News and summarize the top three stories for me". Or drive it yourself:

owb open https://example.com
owb page                 # semantic snapshot: interactive elements numbered @eN
owb click @e1            # act by number
owb help                 # all commands

Running from source (development): `