Auto Browser

Give your AI agent a real browser, with a human in the loop.

Auto Browser is an MCP-native browser control plane for authorized workflows. It gives MCP clients, LLM agents, and operators a shared Playwright browser with human takeover, reusable auth profiles, approvals, audit trails, and local-first deployment.

Works with:

• Claude Desktop

• Cursor

• any MCP client that can talk HTTP or stdio

• direct REST callers when you want curl-first control

Why Auto Browser

• MCP-native from day one. The browser surface is already packaged as an MCP server instead of bolted on after the fact.

• Human takeover when the web gets brittle. noVNC keeps the same live session available when a person needs to step in.

• Login once, reuse later. Save named auth profiles and reopen fresh sessions that are already signed in.

• Local-first by default. Run the full stack on your own box with Docker Compose, or use Codespaces for a quick hosted demo.

• Safety rails built in. Approvals, operator identity, PII scrubbing, Witness receipts, and policy presets are all part of the product surface.

• Governed skill induction. Verified browser traces can become staged skill candidates with signed provenance, verifier adapters, and review-only graduation — agents that prove they can repeat themselves correctly, not just act once.

Related MCP server: Browser-Use MCP Server

Release Highlights (v1.1.0)

• Modular controller architecture splits the app factory, routers, middleware, browser services, action pipeline, and MCP tool packs without changing the public API.

• Agent skill induction foundation ships the governed Stage 0 harness: contracts, tamper-checked traces, verifier adapters, staged skill candidates, signed provenance, and review-only graduation.

• MCP-native operations add tool annotations, resource listing/subscriptions, harness candidate tools, per-tool metrics, and response metadata for better agent planning.

• Skill drift monitoring lets operators re-check staged skills and mark degraded candidates when their verifier no longer passes.

• Release-grade hardening improves route failure logging, tool descriptor caching, deep health packaging, router startup behavior, and artifact path trust.

See CHANGELOG.md for the full release history.

Good Fits

• internal dashboards and admin tools

• operator-assisted QA and browser debugging

• login-once, reuse-later account workflows

• brittle sites where a human may need to recover the flow

• MCP-powered agent workflows that need a real browser, not just HTML fetches

Not the Goal

• CAPTCHA solving

• unauthorized scraping or account automation

• deceptive identity shaping or bypass tooling

What You Get

Quickstart

git clone https://github.com/LvcidPsyche/auto-browser.git
cd auto-browser
docker compose up --build

That is enough for local development with the default settings.

Optional:

cp .env.example .env
make doctor

Run make doctor from a normal terminal with local Docker access and permission to open localhost sockets.

Open:

• API docs: http://127.0.0.1:8000/docs

• Operator dashboard: http://127.0.0.1:8000/dashboard

• Visual takeover: http://127.0.0.1:6080/vnc.html?autoconnect=true&resize=scale

All published ports bind to 127.0.0.1 by default.

Try It in Codespaces

Codespaces provisions the stack automatically. The dashboard and noVNC tabs are usually ready in about 90 seconds.

First Useful Demo

The highest-signal flow in this repo is:

1. create a session

2. log in manually if the site needs a human

3. save the session as a named auth profile

4. open a new session from that auth profile

5. continue work without reauthing

Start here:

• examples/login-and-save-profile.md

• examples/README.md

Minimal session creation:

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8000/sessions \
  -X POST \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{"name":"demo","start_url":"https://example.com"}' | jq

Minimal observation:

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8000/sessions/<session-id>/observe | jq

MCP Clients

Auto Browser exposes:

• an HTTP MCP endpoint at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp

• convenience endpoints at http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp/tools and http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp/tools/call

• a bundled stdio bridge at scripts/mcp_stdio_bridge.py

The default MCP tool profile is curated, which keeps the browser surface compact for better tool selection. If you want the full internal tool surface, set:

MCP_TOOL_PROFILE=full

Raw tool-call example:

curl -s http://127.0.0.1:8000/mcp/tools/call \
  -X POST \
  -H 'content-type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "name":"browser.create_session",
    "arguments":{
      "name":"demo",
      "start_url":"https://example.com"
    }
  }' | jq

Client setup guides:

• docs/mcp-clients.md

• examples/claude-desktop-setup.md

• examples/cursor-mcp-setup.md

• examples/claude_desktop_config.json

Convergence Harness

Auto Browser ships a Stage 0 convergence harness for Agent Skill Induction. It runs a structured task contract, records tamper-checked traces, verifies completion, and writes a staged skill candidate with signed provenance. Generated skills are staged only — promotion stays explicit and reviewed.

Read-only inspection tools (harness.list_runs, harness.get_status, harness.get_trace) are exposed in the default curated MCP tool profile so agents can introspect harness state without elevated access. Convergence runs, drift checks, candidate management, and graduation require MCP_TOOL_PROFILE=full, or can be invoked directly over REST.

Start with docs/convergence-harness.md. A deterministic local smoke is:

python -m controller.harness.run --contract evals/contracts/example_read.json --mock-final-url https://example.com --mock-final-text "Example Domain"

For MCP clients, set MCP_TOOL_PROFILE=full to expose the harness.* tools.

Security and Compliance

For a real private deployment, set at least:

APP_ENV=production
API_BEARER_TOKEN=<strong-random-secret>
REQUIRE_OPERATOR_ID=true
AUTH_STATE_ENCRYPTION_KEY=<44-char-fernet-key>
REQUIRE_AUTH_STATE_ENCRYPTION=true
REQUEST_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=true
METRICS_ENABLED=true
STEALTH_ENABLED=false

COMPLIANCE_TEMPLATE can apply a preconfigured posture at startup:

Both presets require upload approvals and enable Witness receipts. Startup writes the applied policy to /data/compliance-manifest.json. The legacy names (HIPAA, SOC2, GDPR, PCI-DSS) still work as deprecated aliases and emit a warning at startup.

Example:

COMPLIANCE_TEMPLATE=strict docker compose up

For deployment details, hosted Witness notes, CLI auth modes, and reverse-SSH guidance, see:

• docs/deployment.md

• docs/production-hardening.md

Architecture at a Glance

flowchart LR
    User[Human operator] -->|watch / takeover| noVNC[noVNC]
    LLM[OpenAI / Claude / Gemini] -->|shared tools| Controller[Controller API]
    Controller -->|Playwright protocol| Browser[Browser node]
    noVNC --> Browser
    Browser --> Artifacts[(screenshots / traces / auth state)]
    Controller --> Artifacts
    Controller --> Policy[Allowlist + approval gates]

Core components:

• browser-node/ runs Chromium, Xvfb, x11vnc, and noVNC

• controller/ exposes the FastAPI controller, MCP transport, policy rails, and orchestration endpoints

• data/ holds runtime artifacts, auth state, approvals, audit logs, and optional CLI caches

• scripts/ contains local helpers for doctor, smoke tests, bridges, and release checks

Repo Guide

Common Commands

Documentation Map

Contributing

If you want to help, start with:

• CONTRIBUTING.md

• docs/good-first-issues.md

• CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md

If Auto Browser is useful, a star helps other people find it. Sponsorship and tip options live in TIPS.md.