Browser

browser

Composite skill that gives the agent eyes and hands for any browser-driven task — web pages or Electron desktop apps — via the agent-browser CLI.

Three recipes:

• Web automation — generic web pages plus Pi Dashboard-specific helpers (dashboard URL detection, responsive testing, console-error hunting). Reference: references/web.md.
• Electron automation — drive any Chromium-based Electron app, including a worked example for the Pi Dashboard's own shell via --debug-cdp. Reference: references/electron.md.
• The user's own logged-in browser — reach SSO/2FA-gated sites using the user's real cookies via an extension bridge (Panerelay), plus how to list and select Chrome profiles. Reference: references/own-browser.md.

Step 0a — Preflight: agent-browser CLI must be installed

The skill does not bundle the CLI. Verify it through the dashboard tool registry — recommend-only, nothing installs without an explicit --install:

pi-dashboard-ensure <extension-package-root>/package.json

<extension-package-root> is the package that ships this skill — three levels above this SKILL.md's .pi/skills/browser/ directory (in a global install: $(npm root -g)/@blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard/node_modules/@blackbelt-technology/pi-dashboard-extension). The manifest (pi.tools) declares agent-browser (resolve) and chromium (pw-browser); the registry answers present / recommended / blocked per tool.

• agent-browser: present → continue to Step 0b.

• agent-browser: recommended or blocked → halt and tell the user:

  The agent-browser CLI is not installed. Install it as a pi extension so the browser tool is registered in your pi session too:

  pi install npm:pi-agent-browser
  

  Then re-invoke the skill.

• chromium missing → mention the registry's Install hint (npx playwright@1.62.1 install chromium) only when the chosen recipe needs a CDP browser; the dropdown on the Settings → Tools row carries it.

Do not attempt npm install, pi install, or any other install command on the user's behalf — they should make that choice explicitly.

Step 0b — Auto-detect: route to the right recipe

After the preflight, decide which recipe applies. Run this 2-line probe:

if command -v lsof >/dev/null 2>&1; then
  CDP_LIVE=$(lsof -ti :9222 >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo yes || echo no)
else
  CDP_LIVE=$(nc -z 127.0.0.1 9222 2>/dev/null && echo yes || echo no)
fi
PD_RUNNING=$(pgrep -f "Pi Dashboard|pi-dashboard" >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo yes || echo no)
echo "CDP_LIVE=$CDP_LIVE PD_RUNNING=$PD_RUNNING"

Routing rule:

Override: if the user's request is explicitly about a website (URL, HTTPS host, "the dashboard at localhost:8000", etc.), route to references/web.md regardless of what's running. Intent wins over capability.

Override: if the user's request is explicitly about an Electron app that isn't Pi Dashboard (Slack, VS Code, Figma, …), route to references/electron.md even when PD_RUNNING=no — that recipe covers launching any Electron app with --remote-debugging-port.

Override (login state): if the target needs the user's existing session — "use my browser", "I'm already logged in", SSO/2FA, an internal tool the agent cannot sign into — route to references/own-browser.md regardless of the probe. The default bundled browser starts logged out and cannot be made to inherit those logins; --profile copies the profile and still loses macOS Keychain-encrypted cookies. Prefer the bundled browser whenever login state is irrelevant — it is faster and more capable.

Step 1 — Read the matched recipe and execute

Read the reference file selected above, then follow its workflow. Both references are self-contained; you do not need to read both.

Notes

• Vendoring: references/web.md and references/electron.md are snapshots of upstream agent-browser skill content (core and electron) at CLI version 0.27.0. See UPSTREAM.md for refresh procedure and LICENSE for upstream attribution. references/own-browser.md is authored, not vendored — an upstream refresh must not overwrite it.
• Surfaces share one browser: the browser MCP tool and Bash: agent-browser … drive the same daemon and same Chrome, with a shared active page. Probing with one mid-task can silently move the page out from under the other. Pick one surface per task; use --session <name> for genuinely isolated browsers.
• Known wrapper bug: the MCP tool's eval echoes the JS source instead of executing it (and mangles regex escapes) — still present with CLI 0.33.2, so it is a pi-agent-browser wrapper defect, not a CLI one. Use Bash: agent-browser eval … instead.
• No CLI bundled: agents installing the bridge extension get the skill text but not the CLI; install on demand per Step 0a.
• User-local override: if the user's project has its own .pi/skills/browser/ skill, pi's local-wins precedence applies and this skill is shadowed — that's by design.