servo-fetch 0.2.1

servo-fetch embeds the Servo browser engine into a single, lightweight binary. It executes JavaScript via SpiderMonkey, computes CSS layout with Servo's parallel engine, captures screenshots with a software renderer, and extracts clean content — as a CLI tool or an MCP server for AI agents.

servo-fetch "https://example.com"                        # Clean Markdown
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --screenshot page.png  # PNG screenshot, no GPU needed
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --js "document.title"  # Run JS in the page

Install

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/konippi/servo-fetch/main/install.sh | sh

Or via GitHub Releases, or with Cargo (requires Rust 1.86.0+):

cargo binstall servo-fetch   # prebuilt binary
cargo install servo-fetch    # build from source

Linux runtime dependencies

The Linux binary dynamically links against system libraries. Install them with:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install -y libegl1 libfontconfig1 libfreetype6

# Fedora
sudo dnf install -y mesa-libEGL fontconfig freetype

# Arch
sudo pacman -S --needed mesa fontconfig freetype2

servo-fetch needs a working OpenGL ES context, so on headless servers (SSH/container) run it under a virtual display such as xvfb-run --auto-servernum servo-fetch ....

Windows

Windows releases ship as a .zip containing servo-fetch.exe alongside libEGL.dll and libGLESv2.dll — keep them in the same directory. Download from Releases, extract, and put the folder on your PATH.

Usage

# Readable Markdown (default)
servo-fetch "https://example.com"

# Structured JSON
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --json

# Screenshot — rendered to PNG without GPU
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --screenshot page.png

# Execute JavaScript in the page context
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --js "document.title"

# Extract a specific section by CSS selector
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --selector "article"

# PDF text extraction (auto-detected)
servo-fetch "https://example.com/report.pdf"

MCP server

servo-fetch includes a built-in MCP server with three tools — fetch, screenshot, and execute_js — over stdio or Streamable HTTP.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "servo-fetch": {
      "command": "servo-fetch",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP transport:

servo-fetch mcp --port 8080

Agent Skills

servo-fetch ships with an Agent Skills package for AI coding agents. Install with npx skills:

npx skills add https://github.com/konippi/servo-fetch/tree/main/skills/servo-fetch

Why servo-fetch

Servo is a real browser engine. Written in Rust by the Servo project (Linux Foundation), Servo executes JavaScript via SpiderMonkey and computes CSS layout with a parallel engine. servo-fetch embeds this engine so you get browser-grade rendering without a browser runtime.

CSS layout strips navigation noise. Most extraction tools guess page structure from HTML tags. servo-fetch calls getComputedStyle() and getBoundingClientRect() inside the engine to detect fixed navbars, sidebars, and footers — then removes them before extraction. Common cookie banners and newsletter popups are also stripped via injected user stylesheets.

Accessibility tree with bounding boxes. servo-fetch can return the page's accessibility tree via Servo's AccessKit integration. Each node includes its role, name, and bounding box — combining semantic structure with visual layout in a single output. Use format: "accessibility_tree" in the MCP fetch tool.

How it works

1. Servo loads the page and executes JavaScript via SpiderMonkey
2. User stylesheets strip cookie banners and common noise elements
3. CSS is computed with Servo's parallel layout engine — getComputedStyle() and getBoundingClientRect() identify page structure
4. Navbars, sidebars, and footers are stripped using CSS layout data
5. Mozilla's Readability algorithm extracts the main content
6. Content is output as Markdown, JSON, accessibility tree, or PNG

PDF URLs are auto-detected via Content-Type and extracted directly without Servo.

Options

JSON output

--json returns an object with these fields:

Fields marked ? are omitted when not detected.

Security

servo-fetch blocks all private and reserved IP ranges (RFC 6890), strips credentials from URLs, validates redirect targets, and sanitizes all output against terminal escape injection (CVE-2021-42574). See SECURITY.md for details.

Limitations

• Best suited for documentation, blogs, and SSR sites
• Some SPAs with complex client-side rendering may not fully render
• Servo's web compatibility is improving monthly

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for development setup, commit conventions, and PR guidelines.

License

MIT