servo-fetch 0.2.2

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

Platform notes

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:

xvfb-run --auto-servernum servo-fetch "https://example.com"

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.

No runtime dependencies. The release binary is ready to run.

Usage

Examples

# 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"

# Raw HTML or plain text (bypasses Readability)
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --raw html
servo-fetch "https://example.com" --raw text

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

Options

JSON output

--json returns an object with these fields:

Fields marked ? are omitted when not detected.

Why servo-fetch

Servo is a real browser engine. Written in Rust by the Servo project, 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.

Main content via Readability. After CSS-based structure removal, Mozilla's Readability algorithm extracts the main article. PDF URLs are auto-detected via Content-Type and extracted directly without the Servo engine.

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

The fetch tool accepts these parameters:

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

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

Security

servo-fetch blocks all private and reserved IP ranges (RFC 6890), strips credentials from URLs, disables HTTP redirects to prevent SSRF bypass, 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