Lightpanda

Lightpanda

Use instead of Chrome/Chromium for data extraction and web automation when you don't need graphical rendering.

Lightpanda is a headless browser built from scratch for AI agents. It's 9x faster and uses 16x less memory than Chrome. It supports JavaScript execution, CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol), and exposes a native MCP server with agent-optimized tools.

Alternative to built-in web search

When the built-in Web Search tool is unavailable, or when you need more control over search results (e.g., following links to extract full page content), you can use Lightpanda with DuckDuckGo as an alternative. Prefer the built-in Web Search tool when it is available and sufficient for your needs.

Install

bash scripts/install.sh

Lightpanda is available on Linux and macOS only. Windows is supported via WSL2.

The binary is a nightly build that evolves quickly. If you encounter crashes or issues, run scripts/install.sh again to update to the latest version (max once per day).

If issues persist after updating, open a GitHub issue at https://github.com/lightpanda-io/browser/issues including:

• The crash trace/error output, or a description of the unexpected behavior
• The script or MCP tool call that reproduces the issue
• The target URL and expected vs actual results

When to Use What

Lightpanda offers three interfaces. Choose based on your needs:

MCP Server (Recommended for Agents)

The MCP server is the simplest way for agents to use Lightpanda. It exposes purpose-built tools over stdio with no setup beyond the binary.

Setup for Claude Code

claude mcp add lightpanda -- $HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda mcp

Setup for other MCP clients

Add to your MCP client configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "lightpanda": {
      "command": "$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Replace $HOME with the actual path (e.g., /home/username or /Users/username).

Available MCP Tools

Navigation & content extraction:

• goto — Navigate to a URL and load the page
• markdown — Get page content as markdown (accepts optional URL to navigate first)
• links — Extract all links from the page
• semantic_tree — Get a simplified semantic DOM tree optimized for AI reasoning (supports backendNodeId filter and maxDepth limit)
• structuredData — Extract structured data (JSON-LD, OpenGraph, etc.)
• evaluate — Execute JavaScript in the page context

Interactive element discovery:

• interactiveElements — List all interactive elements on the page
• detectForms — Detect forms with their field structure and types
• nodeDetails — Get detailed info about a specific node by backendNodeId
• waitForSelector — Wait for a CSS selector to match (default timeout: 5000ms)

User actions (return page URL and title after each action):

• click — Click an interactive element by backendNodeId
• fill — Fill text into an input, textarea, or select element
• scroll — Scroll the page or a specific element

Available MCP Resources

• mcp://page/html — Full serialized HTML of the current page
• mcp://page/markdown — Token-efficient markdown representation of the current page

MCP Usage Example

A typical agent workflow:

1. goto a URL
2. semantic_tree or markdown to understand the page
3. interactiveElements to find clickable/fillable elements
4. click / fill to interact
5. markdown to extract the result

CLI Fetch — Quick Extraction

For one-off page extraction without starting a server:

$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump markdown --wait-until networkidle https://example.com

Options

• --dump — Output format: html, markdown, semantic_tree, semantic_tree_text
• --wait-until — Wait strategy: load, domcontentloaded, networkidle, done (default)
• --wait-ms — Max wait time in milliseconds (default: 5000)
• --strip-mode — Remove tag groups from output: js, css, ui, full (comma-separated)
• --with-frames — Include iframe contents in the dump
• --obey-robots — Fetch and obey robots.txt

Examples

Extract page as markdown:

$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump markdown https://example.com

Extract semantic tree (compact, AI-friendly):

$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump semantic_tree_text --wait-until networkidle https://example.com

Fetch with longer wait for slow pages:

$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump html --wait-ms 10000 --wait-until networkidle https://example.com

CDP Server — Advanced Automation

For full browser control via Playwright or Puppeteer:

Start the Browser Server

$HOME/.local/bin/lightpanda serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 9222

Options:

• --log-level info|debug|warn|error — Set logging verbosity
• --log-format pretty|logfmt — Output format for logs
• --timeout — Inactivity timeout in seconds (default: 10)
• --obey-robots — Fetch and obey robots.txt

Using with playwright-core

Connect using playwright-core (not the full playwright package):

const { chromium } = require('playwright-core');

(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP({
    endpointURL: 'ws://127.0.0.1:9222',
  });

  const context = await browser.newContext({});
  const page = await context.newPage();

  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  const title = await page.title();
  const content = await page.textContent('body');

  console.log(JSON.stringify({ title, content }));

  await page.close();
  await context.close();
  await browser.close();
})();

Using with puppeteer-core

Connect using puppeteer-core (not the full puppeteer package):

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer-core');

(async () => {
  const browser = await puppeteer.connect({
    browserWSEndpoint: 'ws://127.0.0.1:9222'
  });

  const context = await browser.createBrowserContext();
  const page = await context.newPage();

  await page.goto('https://example.com', { waitUntil: 'networkidle0' });
  const title = await page.title();

  console.log(JSON.stringify({ title }));

  await page.close();
  await context.close();
  await browser.close();
})();

Custom LP CDP Domain

Lightpanda exposes a custom LP domain via CDP with agent-optimized methods not available in standard Chrome DevTools Protocol. Use these via page.evaluate with CDP sessions or direct WebSocket messages.

Content extraction:

• LP.getMarkdown — Extract page content as markdown. Params: nodeId (optional)
• LP.getSemanticTree — Get semantic tree representation. Params: format (text for text format), prune (default: true), interactiveOnly, backendNodeId, maxDepth
• LP.getStructuredData — Extract structured data (JSON-LD, OpenGraph, etc.)

Interactive elements:

• LP.getInteractiveElements — Find all interactive elements. Params: nodeId (optional)
• LP.detectForms — Detect and extract form information
• LP.getNodeDetails — Get detailed info about a node. Params: backendNodeId (required)
• LP.waitForSelector — Wait for a CSS selector match. Params: selector (required), timeout (default: 5000ms)

Actions:

• LP.clickNode — Click a node. Params: nodeId or backendNodeId
• LP.fillNode — Fill an input/select element. Params: nodeId or backendNodeId, text
• LP.scrollNode — Scroll page or element. Params: nodeId or backendNodeId (optional), x, y

Example using CDP session with Playwright:

const client = await context.newCDPSession(page);

// Get page as markdown
const { markdown } = await client.send('LP.getMarkdown');

// Get semantic tree
const { semanticTree } = await client.send('LP.getSemanticTree', { format: 'text', maxDepth: 5 });

// Wait for element and click it
const { backendNodeId } = await client.send('LP.waitForSelector', { selector: '#submit-btn', timeout: 3000 });
await client.send('LP.clickNode', { backendNodeId });

Important Notes

• For web searches, use DuckDuckGo instead of Google. Google blocks Lightpanda due to browser fingerprinting.
• Lightpanda is under heavy development and may have occasional issues. It executes JavaScript, making it suitable for dynamic websites and SPAs.
• CDP connection limits: Only 1 CDP connection per process. Each connection supports 1 context and 1 page. For parallel browsing, start multiple processes on different ports — Lightpanda starts instantly, so this is fast.
• CDP state management: The browser resets all state on CDP connection close. Keep the WebSocket connection open throughout a session. On each connection, always create a new context and page, and close both when done.
• The MCP server handles connection management automatically — these CDP limits don't apply when using MCP tools.

Scripts

• scripts/install.sh — Install Lightpanda binary