Headless Browser Research

Ultimate Browsing

Escalation web access for tasks a normal browse or fetch cannot complete. Reach for this skill the moment a page is blocked (WAF / 403 / Cloudflare), needs JS rendering, hides behind a login, or lives on a platform a generic fetcher cannot read. Escalate only when the cheaper tier cannot do the job:

Tier 1 — insane-search (headless extraction + WAF bypass) -> Tier 1.5 — agent-reach (platform-native APIs, esp. Chinese platforms) -> Tier 2 — Chrome stealth (real interaction via CloakBrowser + agent-browser).

PHASE 0 — ROUTE FIRST (MANDATORY)

User request
  |
  +- extract text/data from a URL --------------------- TIER 1  insane-search
  +- URL blocked / 403 / Cloudflare / WAF ------------- TIER 1  insane-search
  +- YouTube/Vimeo/TikTok subtitles or metadata ------- TIER 1  insane-search (yt-dlp)
  +- read an article / blog / Reddit / HN / arXiv ----- TIER 1  insane-search
  |
  +- Chinese platform (xhs/douyin/weibo/bilibili/v2ex/wechat)  TIER 1.5 agent-reach
  +- podcast transcript / stock forum ----------------- TIER 1.5 agent-reach
  +- Twitter feed / LinkedIn profile / GitHub via CLI - TIER 1.5 agent-reach
  |
  +- Tier 1/1.5 returned empty or partial ------------- TIER 2  Chrome stealth
  +- click / fill form / scroll / interact ------------ TIER 2  Chrome stealth
  +- screenshot / render / play video ----------------- TIER 2  Chrome stealth
  +- login session across pages / inject cookies ------ TIER 2  Chrome stealth
  +- test web app / QA / dogfood ---------------------- TIER 2  Chrome stealth
  |
  +- simple search query ------------------------------ NOT this skill (use web-search)

Read the matching reference before acting: references/insane-search/README.md, references/agent-reach/README.md, or references/chrome-stealth.md.

Tier 1 — insane-search (headless extraction)

When: content extraction, blocked-URL bypass, media metadata — no browser UI needed. Why first: ~10x faster than a browser, no process spin-up; handles most "fetch this blocked page" requests via curl_cffi TLS impersonation, yt-dlp (1858 sites), official public APIs, mobile URL transforms, Phase-2.5 surrogate archives (Wayback / archive.today snapshots, provenance-tagged — see references/insane-search/cache-archive.md), a key-gated Jina Reader (JINA_API_KEY), and a Playwright real-Chrome fallback. The engine lives inside this skill at engine/ and is invoked as a module. Surrogate results are dated COPIES: a result whose provenance is snapshot must be reported with its snapshot_timestamp, never presented as the live page.

# Core command — auto-detects WAF, runs the full fetch grid (run from the skill dir):
python3 -m engine "https://example.com/blocked-page"
#   add --selector "<CSS>" for positive-proof validation, --device auto|desktop|mobile,
#   --trace to inspect every attempt, --json for machine-readable output.

# YouTube subtitles / metadata (no browser):
yt-dlp --write-sub --write-auto-sub --sub-lang "en,ko" --skip-download -o "/tmp/%(id)s" "<URL>"

# Reddit / HN / Bluesky / arXiv etc. use official public endpoints — see the Phase 0 index in
# references/insane-search/README.md (Twitter syndication, Reddit .json, HN Firebase, ...).

The full engine harness (rules R1-R7, the Phase 0 official-API index, the no-site-name rule, and the references/insane-search/*.md deep-dives for TLS, Playwright routing, Naver, media, etc.) is in references/insane-search/README.md. Read it before tuning the engine or adding a WAF profile.

Escalate to Tier 1.5 or Tier 2 when

• The target is a Chinese / social platform with a native reader -> Tier 1.5.
• insane-search returns empty/partial, or the page needs JS interaction, a screenshot, a persistent login, or media playback -> Tier 2.

Tier 1.5 — agent-reach (platform-native readers)

When: the target is a platform with a first-class API/CLI that beats generic fetching — especially Chinese platforms that stealth browsers still cannot reach cleanly. Several channels are zero-config (Douyin, V2EX, Reddit, RSS, YouTube); others need a one-time auth you supply via environment variables if you have access (JINA_API_KEY for Jina Reader — anonymous access is dead, see references/insane-search/jina.md; TWITTER_* for X; a transcription key for podcasts).

mcporter call 'douyin.parse_douyin_video_info(url: "<URL>")'   # douyin, zero-config
curl -s "https://r.jina.ai/https://weibo.com/<uid>/<pid>"      # weibo via Jina
yt-dlp --dump-json "<bilibili-url>"                            # Bilibili (overseas: add --cookies-from-browser)
curl -s "https://www.v2ex.com/api/topics/hot.json"            # V2EX public API

Routing table, per-platform auth (set TWITTER_* env vars, gh auth login, a transcription key — only if you have access), rate-limit notes, and known version quirks are in references/agent-reach/README.md.

Tier 2 — Chrome stealth (real interaction)

When: real interaction is needed (clicks, forms, screenshots, video, persistent login), or Tier 1/1.5 failed.

CloakBrowser is a stealth Chromium with source-level fingerprint patches that passes Cloudflare Turnstile, FingerprintJS, BrowserScan, and 30+ detectors; agent-browser is the CDP automation CLI that drives it. Both are runtime-installed tools (not vendored here). Full setup, version pins, launch flow, cookie login, and cross-platform notes are in references/chrome-stealth.md.

NEVER clear cookies, cache, or site data (Network.clearBrowserCookies, Storage.clearCookies, chrome.browsingData.remove, "clear browsing data") on the user's real/main browser profile — it wipes their logged-in state everywhere. If the task needs that profile's login state, clone the profile directory first (rsync -a <profile>/ <tmp-clone>/) and launch CloakBrowser / agent-browser with the clone as the user-data-dir; run any clearing on the clone only.

# 1. Launch CloakBrowser with CDP on :9242 (see chrome-stealth.md for install + venv).
# 2. CloakBrowser launches tabless — open the first tab via CDP before any agent-browser command:
curl -s -X PUT "http://127.0.0.1:9242/json/new?https://example.com"
# 3. Drive it with agent-browser over CDP:
agent-browser --cdp 9242 snapshot -i        # interactive elements (@eN refs)
agent-browser --cdp 9242 click @e3
agent-browser --cdp 9242 screenshot out.png
agent-browser --cdp 9242 close

Cookie login (cross-platform)

scripts/extract_cookies.py reads cookies from a local Chromium-family or Firefox-family browser and optionally injects them into the running CDP session. It resolves browser profile paths and decrypts cookie values per-OS (macOS Keychain, Linux libsecret, Windows DPAPI):

# Extract cookies to a file:
mkdir -p ~/.local/state/omo-cookies
python3 scripts/extract_cookies.py --browser chrome --domain youtube.com --output ~/.local/state/omo-cookies/youtube.cookies.json
# Extract and inject into the running CDP session:
python3 scripts/extract_cookies.py --browser chrome --domain youtube.com --inject --cdp 9242

Cookie export files are written with owner-only 0600 permissions. Do not place live auth cookies in shared temp directories or commit them to a repo. Cookie injection sends values to CDP over stdin rather than argv. Cookies apply on next navigation — reload after injecting. Google services use fingerprint-bound tokens that may not transfer across browser profiles. Full detail in references/chrome-stealth.md.

Reference docs

Environment variables

CLOAK_CDP_PORT=9242              # CloakBrowser CDP port (default 9242)
AGENT_BROWSER_USER_AGENT="..."   # override UA to hide HeadlessChrome
AGENT_BROWSER_HEADED=1           # show the browser window
# agent-reach auth: set the channel-specific env vars from each tool's docs only if you have access
# insane-search needs no env vars — it auto-installs deps on first run

Anti-patterns

• Do NOT launch Chrome stealth for plain text extraction — use Tier 1.
• Do NOT pass an --init-script for the webdriver flag — CloakBrowser already patches it at source; the only required override is --user-agent.
• Do NOT run agent-browser before creating the first tab via curl -X PUT .../json/new — CloakBrowser launches tabless.
• Do NOT use vanilla Chrome when stealth is needed — always CloakBrowser.
• Do NOT forget to close the session when done.
• Do NOT inject cookies without reloading the page.
• Do NOT hardcode site domains/selectors into engine/** or waf_profiles.yaml — runtime hints only (see the no-site-name rule in the insane-search reference).

Execution Workflow

1. Inspect task requirements.
2. Execute structured capabilities.
3. Verify output against criteria.