VRIL-LABS firecrawl browser
Cloud Chromium sessions in Firecrawl's remote sandboxed environment. Interact with pages that require clicks, form fills, pagination, or login.
When to use
- Content requires interaction: clicks, form fills, pagination, login
scrapefailed because content is behind JavaScript interaction- You need to navigate a multi-step flow
- Last resort in the workflow escalation pattern: search → scrape → map → crawl → browser
- Never use browser for web searches — use
searchinstead
Quick start
# Typical browser workflow
firecrawl browser "open <url>"
firecrawl browser "snapshot -i" # see interactive elements with @ref IDs
firecrawl browser "click @e5" # interact with elements
firecrawl browser "fill @e3 'search query'" # fill form fields
firecrawl browser "scrape" -o .firecrawl/page.md # extract content
firecrawl browser close
Shorthand auto-launches a session if none exists — no setup required.
Commands
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
open <url> |
Navigate to a URL |
snapshot -i |
Get interactive elements with @ref IDs |
screenshot |
Capture a PNG screenshot |
click <@ref> |
Click an element by ref |
type <@ref> <text> |
Type into an element |
fill <@ref> <text> |
Fill a form field (clears first) |
scrape |
Extract page content as markdown |
scroll <direction> |
Scroll up/down/left/right |
wait <seconds> |
Wait for a duration |
eval <js> |
Evaluate JavaScript on the page |
Session management: launch-session --ttl 600, list, close
Options
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
--ttl <seconds> |
Session time-to-live |
--ttl-inactivity <seconds> |
Inactivity timeout |
--session <id> |
Use a specific session ID |
--profile <name> |
Use a named profile (persists state) |
--no-save-changes |
Read-only reconnect (don't write to session state) |
-o, --output <path> |
Output file path |
Profiles
Profiles survive close and can be reconnected by name. Use them for login-then-work flows:
# Session 1: Login and save state
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app
firecrawl browser "open https://app.example.com/login"
firecrawl browser "snapshot -i"
firecrawl browser "fill @e3 'user@example.com'"
firecrawl browser "click @e7"
firecrawl browser "wait 2"
firecrawl browser close
# Session 2: Come back authenticated
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app
firecrawl browser "open https://app.example.com/dashboard"
firecrawl browser "scrape" -o .firecrawl/dashboard.md
firecrawl browser close
Read-only reconnect (no writes to session state):
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app --no-save-changes
Shorthand with profile:
firecrawl browser --profile my-app "open https://example.com"
Tips
- If you get forbidden errors, the session may have expired — create a new one.
- For parallel browser work, launch separate sessions and operate them via
--session <id>. - Always
closesessions when done to free resources.
See also
- firecrawl-scrape — try scrape first, escalate to browser only when needed
- firecrawl-search — for web searches (never use browser for searching)
- firecrawl-agent — AI-powered extraction (less manual control)