blowsh-mcp

Model Context Protocol Server for JS-Capable Terminal Browsing with Browsh

What is blowsh-mcp?

blowsh-mcp is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes the power of Browsh—a fully JavaScript-capable terminal browser—to any AI Agent, IDE agent, or MCP client. This project allows your AI to fetch and render any modern web page, including those requiring JavaScript, and receive the result as easily-parsed plain text, HTML, or Markdown.

Mnemonic: “blowsh” = Browsh-powered MCP server.

Related MCP server: openmcp

Key Features

• fetch_web Tool: Unified tool for readable plain text, HTML, or Markdown extraction (after full JS rendering). Supports CSS selector extraction, max_chars output caps, wait_ms JS-settle polling, plus DonSeTch-parity extras: focus (BM25 relevance — cuts tokens 50-80%), toc/section (cheap outline → targeted section), must_contain probe (MATCH/NO-MATCH + excerpts, ~60 tokens), archive (Wayback auto/only resurrection), and stitch (follow rel=next up to 6 parts, same-host).

• search_web Tool: Discover pages via 4 rendered engines (DuckDuckGo HTML, Bing, Brave, Mojeek) fused by cross-engine consensus — plus intent verticals (code→GitHub, paper→arXiv, news→HN, entity→Wikipedia). Supports query_variants (parallel alternate formulations), intent (auto/web/code/paper/news/entity), deadline_ms (hard budget), pagination, and enrich (top-3 markdown).

• crawl_web Tool: Sitemap-aware crawl — two-phase (map + content), focus-ranked frontier (BM25-lite), Governor pacing, robots.txt, resume tokens (30 min), since_last delta, globs (include/exclude), same_host, budgets (max_pages/max_total_chars/deadline_s).

• extract_links Tool: List hyperlinks (text + absolute URL) from any JS-rendered page for navigation following.

• fetch_web_batch Tool: Fetch up to 10 URLs in one call with per-URL error isolation.

• SSRF guard: Refuses requests to loopback, private, link-local, or reserved addresses (DNS-resolved), protecting the server-side browser.

• AI-optimized tool documentation: Inputs, outputs, and illustrated use-cases designed for seamless agent automation. Tools throw structured errors with HTTP status codes (isError in MCP responses).

• Robust Browsh management: Launches Browsh once, keeps it running, reuses a RAM/CPU-light singleton, graceful shutdown on exit.

• In-memory render cache with TTL: Repeated fetches are served instantly without re-rendering.

• Designed for PaaS, Cloud, Local AI tools, and IDE agents.

Links

• Browsh CLI Browser — The rendering engine.

• Firefox — Required as the backend for Browsh.

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) Specification — The agent/server protocol.

How it Works

1. AI/Agent makes an MCP request: fetch_web (single URL, now with focus/toc/section/must_contain/archive/stitch), search_web (query + variants/intent), crawl_web (seed + budgets), extract_links (URL), or fetch_web_batch (up to 10 URLs).

2. blowsh-mcp launches Browsh in HTTP server mode (on first use) and reuses it for all later calls.

3. blowsh-mcp requests the raw output from Browsh, using X-Browsh-Raw-Mode: PLAIN (for text), DOM (for HTML), or fetches HTML and then converts to Markdown; for crawl_web, it walks sitemaps + frontier via the same Browsh singleton + sitemap XML over axios.

4. The page (after full JS execution) is returned as terminal plain text, rich HTML DOM, or clean Markdown—AI/agents pick the output type to match downstream processing; crawl returns {pages, map, queued, skipped, stop}.

5. Results are cached in memory (TTL) so repeated fetches are instant; every request is SSRF-checked before reaching the browser.

Quick Start (Docker — Prebuilt Image)

The image is published to GitHub Container Registry and rebuilt automatically on every main push via GitHub Actions — no host-side Firefox/Browsh/html2markdown needed:

docker pull ghcr.io/mokhtarabadi/blowsh-mcp:latest
docker run --rm -i ghcr.io/mokhtarabadi/blowsh-mcp:latest

The -i flag is mandatory: the MCP server speaks JSON-RPC over stdin/stdout. Keep it interactive and pipe requests, or point your MCP client at it (see AI Client Configuration below).

Example Usage

From Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-enabled agent:

{
  "tool": "search_web",
  "params": { "query": "bitcoin price today", "max_results": 5 }
}
// → Ranked results with URLs + snippets → feed top URL to fetch_web

{
  "tool": "fetch_web",
  "params": { "url": "https://coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/", "type": "plain" }
}
// → Returns readable plain text (live price as text table, etc)

{
  "tool": "fetch_web",
  "params": { "url": "https://coindesk.com/price/bitcoin/", "type": "markdown", "selector": "main", "wait_ms": 3000 }
}
// → Markdown of <main> only, after JS settles ("# Bitcoin Price\n\n| Time | Price | ...")

{
  "tool": "extract_links",
  "params": { "url": "https://example.com", "limit": 20 }
}
// → [{"text": "Learn more", "url": "https://iana.org/domains/example"}, ...]

{
  "tool": "fetch_web_batch",
  "params": { "urls": ["https://a.com", "https://b.com"], "type": "markdown" }
}
// → Per-URL results; a failing page never fails the batch

{
  "tool": "fetch_web",
  "params": { "url": "https://example.com/long-docs", "type": "markdown", "focus": "authentication error handling", "toc": false }
}
// → Only BM25-relevant blocks (50-80% shorter)

{
  "tool": "fetch_web",
  "params": { "url": "https://example.com/article", "type": "markdown", "must_contain": "/CVE-2026-\\d+/" }
}
// → MATCH/NO-MATCH + 3 excerpts (~60 tokens) instead of full page

{
  "tool": "crawl_web",
  "params": { "url": "https://docs.example.com", "mode": "full", "focus": "authentication", "max_pages": 20 }
}
// → {pages:[{url, title, kind, markdown, chars, quality}], map, queued, stop, resume}

AI receives:

• With type: plain: pure readable text (tables, lists, main body content; ideal for NLP/summarization or terminal context ingestion).

• With type: html: the full HTML markup, after all JavaScript. Use for element parsing, link graph construction, complex scrapes, etc.

• With type: markdown: a clean Markdown version—best for LLM context chunks, semantic pipelines, and AI-friendly consumption/workflows.

• With toc: true: heading outline only (# Table of Contents); with section: "Heading" that section's markdown.

• With must_contain: probe verdict (MATCH/NO-MATCH) + ≤3 excerpts.

• With archive: "auto": Wayback snapshot labeled with date when live fetch fails.

• With stitch: true: stitched multi-page article with *(part N)* markers.

• Errors are structured: MCP responses set isError: true with a FetchError message including the HTTP status when available.

Project Structure

• src/server.ts — MCP server exposing tools (5 tools in v2.3.0).

• src/browshManager.ts — Launch, monitor, shutdown Browsh.

• src/tools/fetchWeb.ts — fetchWeb (plain/html/markdown/pdf; selector/max_chars/wait_ms + focus/toc/section/must_contain/archive/stitch).

• src/tools/searchWeb.ts — search_web (DDG+Bing+Brave+Mojeek consensus + intent verticals + query_variants + deadline).

• src/tools/crawlWeb.ts — crawl_web (sitemap discovery, frontier BM25-lite, Governor pacing, resume tokens, since_last).

• src/tools/extractLinks.ts — extract_links (hyperlinks from rendered DOM).

• src/tools/fetchWebBatch.ts — fetch_web_batch (multi-URL, per-URL error isolation).

• src/tools/html2markdownManager.ts — Wrapper for html2markdown CLI.

• src/ssrf.ts — SSRF guard (blocks private/loopback/reserved targets).

• src/cache.ts — In-memory TTL render cache.

• src/extract.ts — Main-content extraction, selector helpers, truncation, plus BM25 focus, toc/section, must_contain, stitch helpers.

• src/errors.ts — FetchError + message formatting.

• README.md — This file.

• Dockerfile — Multi-stage container (builds TS, bundles Firefox, Browsh, html2markdown).

• .github/workflows/docker-publish.yml — CI/CD: builds and publishes the image to ghcr.io on main/v*.

• .env — Config overrides. See .env.example for all options.

Installation

Requirements:

• Node.js >= 20.18

• Firefox installed and in PATH

• Browsh CLI installed and in PATH

• html2markdown CLI installed and in PATH

  • On Debian/Ubuntu, install with:

    wget -O /tmp/html2markdown.deb "https://github.com/JohannesKaufmann/html-to-markdown/releases/download/v2.5.2/html2markdown_2.5.2_linux_amd64.deb"
    sudo apt-get install -y /tmp/html2markdown.deb
    rm /tmp/html2markdown.deb

  • Or use the prebuilt binary for your OS from the releases page.

Prefer Docker? Skip the host-side installs entirely — the multi-stage image bundles Firefox, Browsh, and html2markdown. The fastest path is the published image (ghcr.io/mokhtarabadi/blowsh-mcp:latest, see Quick Start); to build it yourself:

docker build -t blowsh-mcp:latest .
docker run --rm -i blowsh-mcp:latest

git clone https://github.com/mokhtarabadi/blowsh-mcp.git
cd blowsh-mcp
npm install
npm run build

Run the MCP server

After building, start the server using:

node dist/server.js

Replace dist/server.js with the correct path if your build output differs.

Create a .env file as needed for configuration. For example:

MCP_TRANSPORT=stdio
BROWSH_FIREFOX_PATH=/usr/bin/firefox-esr
HTML2MARKDOWN_PATH=html2markdown
CACHE_TTL_MS=300000
BROWSH_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_MS=30000
ALLOW_PRIVATE_URLS=false
NODE_ENV=production

• BROWSH_FIREFOX_PATH lets you customize the Firefox executable used by Browsh during headless/HTTP operation.

• HTML2MARKDOWN_PATH lets you specify a custom path to the html2markdown binary (default: html2markdown in PATH).

• CACHE_TTL_MS, BROWSH_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_MS, and ALLOW_PRIVATE_URLS tune the render cache, per-request timeout, and SSRF guard respectively.

• Browsh's HTTP port/host are NOT configurable.

Project Documentation

This README is the user-facing entry point; agent-facing rules live in AGENTS.md and are mandatory reading before any implementation.

Tool API

Returns

• type: plain: Terminal-style, JS-executed readable text (or error string).

• type: html: Post-JS HTML markup string (or error string). With selector, only the matched element's HTML.

• type: markdown: Markdown conversion of the main content or selected element (or error string). Links, headings, lists, and page structure retained for AI-friendly context.

• type: pdf: extracted plain text from the PDF document (via pdftotext, 20 MB cap).

• Errors are structured: an MCP response with isError: true and a FetchError message that includes the HTTP status when knowable (never a silent empty string).

Environment Variables

Set these via .env (loaded automatically) or the environment:

AI-Guided Tool Selection

• Start with search_web: To discover pages, run a query and pick the best result URLs; then fetch them. Use intent when you know the domain (code/paper/news/entity) and query_variants for ambiguous recalls; set deadline_ms to bound latency.

• Use fetch_web for single pages: plain when you need quick readable output for summarization/classification; html to parse elements, links, or tables; markdown for LLM-friendly context chunks. Add selector/max_chars/wait_ms to stay token-efficient and get settled, relevant content. New: focus when you know the topic (cuts tokens 50-80%), toc→section for two cheap calls on long pages, must_contain for verification questions (MATCH + excerpts, ~60 tokens), archive=auto for dead links, stitch for pagination.

• Use crawl_web for sites: Sitemap-aware, focus-ranked, with budgets. Start with mode: map for cheap inventory; then mode: full, focus: "topic" for relevant pages. Resume with resume token if stopped early.

• Use extract_links before deep crawls: Follow navigation cheaply instead of fetching full DOMs.

• Use fetch_web_batch for multiple sources: One call instead of N round-trips; failures are isolated per URL.

Error handling: Tools throw FetchError and MCP returns isError: true with an actionable message — invalid protocols, SSRF blocks, unmatched selectors, HTTP status codes, and rendering failures are never silent.

MCP Protocol: AI Client Configuration

Before configuring your AI client (Claude, Cursor, etc.), you must

1. Install dependencies:    npm install

2. Build the project:    npm run build

3. Launch the MCP server from the compiled output:    node dist/server.js

Example config for Claude Desktop or Cursor:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "blowsh": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["dist/server.js"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Example config for opencode (project opencode.json):

{
  "$schema": "https://opencode.ai/config.json",
  "mcp": {
    "blowsh": {
      "type": "local",
      "command": ["docker", "run", "--rm", "-i", "ghcr.io/mokhtarabadi/blowsh-mcp:latest"],
      "enabled": true,
      "timeout": 120000
    }
  },
  "permission": { "blowsh_*": "allow" }
}

The Docker form needs no host-side binaries; the image bundles Firefox, Browsh, and html2markdown. Restart opencode after saving (config is loaded once at startup).

Graceful Shutdown

blowsh-mcp traps SIGINT/SIGTERM and ensures Browsh is terminated cleanly—no orphan browsers.

Security and Considerations

• The server runs Browsh locally and fetches via HTTP localhost.

• SSRF guard: By default, fetch_web/search_web/extract_links/fetch_web_batch refuse URLs that resolve to loopback, private, link-local, or reserved IP ranges (checked over DNS). Set ALLOW_PRIVATE_URLS=true to disable — not recommended.

• No public exposure unless MCP HTTP/streamable server is explicitly configured.

• Never expose ports to open web without firewall.

• Use env vars for secrets/config.

Extending

Add new tools in src/tools/, export them in src/server.ts, and document.
AI clients will auto-discover docstrings.

Troubleshooting

• If fetchPlain returns 404 or fails to render JS: check Firefox and Browsh are installed and in PATH.

• If Firefox is not found or fails to launch, set BROWSH_FIREFOX_PATH in .env to specify the full path to your Firefox install.

• Browsh port/host are fixed—there is no environment or CLI setting to change them.

• For maximum security, run in a container.

License

MIT

Author: Mohammad Reza Mokhtarabadi mmokhtarabadi@gmail.com