🌐 NasCoder Terminal Browser MCP

🚀 Ultimate Standalone Terminal Browser & Web Scraper - Browse any website, extract content & links directly in your terminal with zero file pollution. 100% standalone with smart fallbacks, enhanced by optional terminal browsers. Perfect for documentation reading, API exploration & web scraping.

⚡ Quick Start (2 minutes)

Method 1: Simple CLI Tool (Easiest)

# Install
npm install -g nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

# Use immediately
browse https://example.com
browse https://docs.python.org --format summary
browse https://news.ycombinator.com --format links

Method 2: Amazon Q CLI Integration

# Install
npm install -g nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

2. Add to Q CLI

Edit ~/.config/amazonq/mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "nascoder-terminal-browser": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp"],
      "timeout": 30000,
      "disabled": false
    }
  }
}

3. Restart Q CLI

# Exit Q CLI
/quit

# Start again
q chat

4. Try It!

Browse https://example.com and show me the content

Related MCP server: crw-mcp

🔥 Why Choose This MCP?

🎯 What You Get

🚀 Standalone Operation

• Zero external dependencies - Works on any system with Node.js

• Built-in fallback - Uses fetch+html-to-text when no terminal browsers available

• Smart enhancement - Automatically uses lynx/w3m/links if installed for better formatting

• Always functional - Never fails due to missing system tools

Terminal Web Browsing

• No file pollution - Everything displayed directly in terminal

• Multiple browser engines - lynx, w3m, links, elinks with auto-selection

• Smart fallback - Uses fetch+html-to-text if no terminal browsers available

• Clean formatting - Optimized for terminal reading

Advanced Features

• Link extraction - Automatically find and list all page links

• Content truncation - Prevent overwhelming output with length limits

• Multiple formats - Choose between full, content-only, links-only, or summary

• Error resilience - Multiple fallback methods ensure success

Developer Friendly

• Zero configuration - Works out of the box

• Comprehensive logging - Debug issues easily

• Flexible options - Customize behavior per request

• MCP standard - Integrates with any MCP-compatible system

🛠️ Available Tools

1. terminal_browse

Browse websites and display content directly in terminal.

Parameters:

• url (required) - Website URL to browse

• browser - Terminal browser to use (auto, lynx, w3m, links, elinks)

• format - Output format (full, content-only, links-only, summary)

• extractLinks - Extract page links (true/false)

• maxLength - Maximum content length to prevent overwhelming output

Example:

Use terminal_browse to visit https://docs.github.com with format=summary

2. check_browsers

Check which terminal browsers are available on your system.

Example:

Check what terminal browsers are available

3. extract_links

Extract all links from a webpage without showing full content.

Parameters:

• url (required) - Website URL to extract links from

• maxLinks - Maximum number of links to return (default: 50)

Example:

Extract all links from https://news.ycombinator.com

🚀 Usage Examples

🎯 Simple CLI Commands

# Browse any website
browse https://example.com

# Get page summary with stats
browse https://docs.python.org --format summary

# Extract all links
browse https://news.ycombinator.com --format links

# Full content with metadata
browse https://github.com/trending --format full

# Limit content length
browse https://very-long-page.com --max-length 1000

# Use specific browser
browse https://example.com --browser lynx

📋 Available Formats

• content - Clean page text (default)

• summary - Brief overview with stats

• links - All extracted links

• full - Complete content with links

🔧 CLI Options

browse <url> [options]

Options:
  --format, -f     Output format (content, summary, links, full)
  --max-length, -l Maximum content length [default: 2000]
  --browser, -b    Browser to use (auto, lynx, w3m, links)
  --help, -h       Show help

🤖 Amazon Q CLI Integration

Browse https://example.com

Documentation Reading

Browse https://docs.python.org/3/ with format=content-only

Link Discovery

Extract links from https://github.com/trending

Quick Summary

Browse https://news.ycombinator.com with format=summary

Specific Browser

Browse https://example.com using lynx browser

📊 Output Formats

Full Format (default)

• Complete page content

• All extracted links

• Metadata and statistics

• Method used for browsing

Content-Only

• Just the page text content

• No links or metadata

• Clean reading experience

Links-Only

• Only the extracted links

• Perfect for navigation

• Numbered list format

Summary

• Brief content preview

• Key statistics

• Quick overview

🔧 Dependencies & Installation

📦 What's Included (Standalone)

The package includes everything needed to work:

• @modelcontextprotocol/sdk - MCP protocol support

• node-fetch - HTTP requests

• cheerio - HTML parsing

• html-to-text - HTML to text conversion

• winston - Logging

🚀 Optional Enhancements

For even better text formatting, install terminal browsers:

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install lynx w3m links

# Ubuntu/Debian  
sudo apt install lynx w3m links elinks

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install lynx w3m links elinks

💡 How It Works

1. First Choice: Uses terminal browsers (lynx, w3m, links) if available

2. Automatic Fallback: Uses built-in fetch+html-to-text if no browsers found

3. Always Works: Never fails due to missing dependencies

🛠️ Terminal Browser Support

Supported Browsers

• lynx - Best text formatting, recommended

• w3m - Good table support, images in some terminals

• links - Interactive features, mouse support

• elinks - Enhanced links with more features

Installation Commands

# macOS (Homebrew)
brew install lynx w3m links

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt install lynx w3m links elinks

# CentOS/RHEL
sudo yum install lynx w3m links elinks

Auto-Selection Priority

1. lynx (best formatting)

2. w3m (good compatibility)

3. links (interactive features)

4. elinks (enhanced features)

5. fetch+html-to-text (always available fallback)

🎨 Advanced Usage

Custom Content Length

{
  "url": "https://very-long-page.com",
  "maxLength": 5000
}

Links Only Mode

{
  "url": "https://documentation-site.com",
  "format": "links-only",
  "maxLinks": 100
}

Specific Browser

{
  "url": "https://example.com",
  "browser": "w3m",
  "extractLinks": false
}

🔍 Troubleshooting

"No terminal browsers found"

# Install at least one terminal browser
brew install lynx  # macOS
sudo apt install lynx  # Ubuntu

"Browser failed" errors

• The tool automatically falls back to fetch+html-to-text

• Check internet connectivity

• Some sites may block terminal browsers

Content too long

Use maxLength parameter to limit output:
Browse https://long-page.com with maxLength=2000

Q CLI doesn't see MCP

1. Check ~/.config/amazonq/mcp.json syntax

2. Restart Q CLI (/quit then q chat)

3. Verify package installation: npm list -g nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

📈 Performance Features

Smart Caching

• No file system caching (by design)

• Memory-efficient processing

• Fast response times

Error Handling

• Multiple fallback methods

• Graceful degradation

• Comprehensive error messages

Resource Management

• 30-second timeout protection

• Memory-conscious content truncation

• Efficient link extraction

🎉 Success Stories

"Finally, a way to browse documentation without cluttering my filesystem with temp files!" - Developer

"The automatic fallback from lynx to fetch+html-to-text saved my workflow when lynx wasn't available." - DevOps Engineer

"Perfect for scraping API docs directly in my terminal. The link extraction is incredibly useful." - API Developer

📋 Comparison

🔗 Links

• NPM Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

• GitHub: https://github.com/freelancernasimofficial/nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

• Issues: https://github.com/freelancernasimofficial/nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp/issues

• Author: @freelancernasimofficial

📄 License

MIT - Feel free to use, modify, and distribute

🚀 Ready to browse the web in your terminal without file clutter?

Install now and experience the difference!

npm install -g nascoder-terminal-browser-mcp

Built with ❤️ by NasCoder (@freelancernasimofficial)