browser-control

browser-control is a Rust CLI that manages browser processes and exposes them over CDP (Chromium) or WebDriver BiDi (Firefox) for agent-driven development. It keeps a small persistent registry of the browsers it has started so multiple agents, shells, or editor sessions can coordinate on the same browser. An optional MCP server is available as a subcommand.

Install

Homebrew (recommended) — tap this repo, then install:

brew tap rickardp/browser-control https://github.com/rickardp/browser-control.git
brew install browser-control

The formula is rendered into Formula/browser-control.rb by CI on every release, so the tap URL above is all you need.

From crates.io:

cargo install browser-control

Prebuilt binaries for macOS (x86_64/aarch64), Linux (x86_64/aarch64) and Windows (x86_64) are attached to every GitHub Release.

Requires Rust 1.80 or newer when building from source. Node.js (for npx) is only required if you intend to use mcp --playwright.

Usage

The CLI exposes four subcommands. All of them accept --json (where listed below) for machine-readable output.

`list-installed`

Detect every supported browser installed on this machine.

browser-control list-installed
browser-control list-installed --json

Supported kinds: chrome, edge, chromium, brave (CDP), and firefox (BiDi).

`list-running`

List the browsers currently registered and alive. Stale entries (dead PIDs or unreachable endpoints) are pruned lazily before printing.

browser-control list-running

Columns: NAME, KIND, PID, ENGINE, ENDPOINT, PROFILE, STARTED.

`start [BROWSER]`

Start a browser and register it. Idempotent by kind: if a browser of the requested kind is already alive, it is reused.

browser-control start                   # first available Chromium-based
browser-control start firefox
browser-control start chrome --headless
browser-control start chromium --profile ./my-profile --json

BROWSER may be a kind (chrome, edge, chromium, brave, firefox) or a friendly instance name printed by a previous start (e.g. firefox-pikachu). When omitted, the first available Chromium-based browser is used.

`mcp [BROWSER] [--playwright]`

Start an MCP server on stdio that targets a running browser.

browser-control mcp                     # use most-recently-started browser
browser-control mcp firefox             # target a specific kind
browser-control mcp --playwright        # passthrough to @playwright/mcp

Browser resolution order:

BROWSER_CONTROL environment variable
The positional BROWSER argument
The most-recently-started running browser in the registry
Otherwise, exit with an error suggesting browser-control start

With --playwright, the CLI spawns the official @playwright/mcp via npx, hands it the resolved CDP endpoint, and forwards stdio bidirectionally. The host sees only Playwright MCP's tools; browser-control's own MCP tools are not exposed in that mode.

The `BROWSER_CONTROL` environment variable

A single environment variable selects which browser the current shell session should talk to. The syntax of the value decides how it is interpreted:

Value form	Behavior
`http(s)://…` or `ws(s)://…` URL	External CDP/BiDi endpoint. Used as-is; not registered and not managed by `browser-control`.
Friendly name (e.g. `firefox-pikachu`)	Exact match against the registry.
Kind (`chrome`, `firefox`, …)	First running instance of that kind in the registry.
Absolute path to a browser executable	Matched against `list-installed` to derive the kind, then resolved as a kind.

Engine (CDP vs BiDi) is auto-detected for URL forms by probing.

MCP integration

browser-control is itself an MCP server when invoked as mcp. Add it to your host's .mcp.json like any other stdio server.

Default tools (exposed by the Rust server):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "browser-control": {
      "command": "browser-control",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

With --playwright passthrough (Playwright MCP's tool surface, but driving the browser that browser-control manages):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "browser-control": {
      "command": "browser-control",
      "args": ["mcp", "--playwright"]
    }
  }
}

You can scope a single host invocation to a specific browser by setting BROWSER_CONTROL:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "browser-control": {
      "command": "browser-control",
      "args": ["mcp"],
      "env": { "BROWSER_CONTROL": "firefox" }
    }
  }
}

Architecture

browser-control is a thin CLI in front of a SQLite registry of browser processes. The CLI starts and tracks browsers; agents talk to those browsers directly over CDP or BiDi. The MCP server is just another way to reach the same registry.

                  ┌───────────────────────────────────────┐
                  │ SQLite registry (OS app-data dir)     │
                  └───────────────────────────────────────┘
                                   ▲
                                   │ read / write
                                   │
   user ──► browser-control start ─┴─► spawns ──► Browser (Chrome/Edge/Firefox/…)
                                                         ▲
                                                         │ CDP / BiDi
                                                         │
              MCP host ──► browser-control mcp [--playwright] ┘
                              (resolves browser via registry / BROWSER_CONTROL)

The CLI does not stop or restart browsers; the user owns lifecycle. Stale registry entries are pruned lazily on read.

Status

Pre-1.0. The CLI surface and the BROWSER_CONTROL environment variable are the intended stable contracts; everything else may shift.

The previous TypeScript MCP server (@anthropic-community/browser-coordinator-mcp) is preserved on the legacy-ts branch and tagged v0-final-ts. Its npm package is deprecated.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

browser-control 0.2.1