--- name: browser-js description: Lightweight CDP browser control for AI agents. Token-efficient alternative to the built-in browser tool — 3-10x fewer tokens per interaction. Use when browsing websites, clicking elements, filling forms, uploading files, or extracting page content. Requires a Chrome/Chromium browser running with --remote-debugging-port (OpenClaw browser works out of the box). Signed-in sessions carry over automatically. ---

browser-js

Lightweight CLI that talks to Chrome via CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol). Returns minimal, indexed output that agents can act on immediately — no accessibility tree parsing, no ref hunting.

Setup

# Install dependency (one-time, in the skill scripts/ dir)
cd scripts && npm install

# Ensure browser is running with CDP enabled.
# With OpenClaw:
#   browser start profile=openclaw
# Or manually:
#   google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=18800 --user-data-dir=~/.browser-data

The tool connects to http://127.0.0.1:18800 by default. Override with CDP_URL env var.

Alias setup (optional)

mkdir -p ~/.local/bin
cat > ~/.local/bin/bjs << 'WRAPPER'
#!/bin/bash
exec node /path/to/scripts/browser.js "$@"
WRAPPER
chmod +x ~/.local/bin/bjs

Commands

bjs tabs                    List open tabs
bjs open <url>              Navigate to URL
bjs tab <index>             Switch to tab
bjs newtab [url]            Open new tab
bjs close [index]           Close tab
bjs elements [selector]     List interactive elements (indexed)
bjs click <index>           Click element by index
bjs type <index> <text>     Type into element
bjs upload <path> [selector] Upload file to input (bypasses OS dialog)
bjs text [selector]         Extract visible page text
bjs html <selector>         Get element HTML
bjs eval <js>               Run JavaScript in page
bjs screenshot [path]       Save screenshot
bjs scroll <up|down|top|bottom> [px]
bjs url                     Current URL
bjs back / forward / refresh
bjs wait <ms>

Coordinate commands (cross-origin iframes, captchas, overlays):
bjs click-xy <x> <y>       Click at page coordinates via CDP Input
bjs click-xy <x> <y> --double   Double-click at coordinates
bjs click-xy <x> <y> --right    Right-click at coordinates
bjs hover-xy <x> <y>       Hover at page coordinates
bjs drag-xy <x1> <y1> <x2> <y2>   Drag between coordinates
bjs iframe-rect <selector> Get iframe bounding box (for click-xy targeting)

How it works

elements scans the page for all interactive elements (links, buttons, inputs, selects, etc.) — including those inside shadow DOM (web components). This means sites like Reddit, GitHub, and other modern SPAs that use shadow DOM are fully supported. The scan recursively pierces all shadow roots.

Returns a compact numbered list:

[0] (link) Hacker News → https://news.ycombinator.com/news
[1] (link) new → https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
[2] (input:text) q
[3] (button) Submit

Then click 3 or type 2 search query — immediately actionable, no interpretation needed.

Auto-indexing: click and type auto-index elements if not already indexed. You can skip calling elements first and go straight to click/type after open. Call elements explicitly when you need to see what's on the page.

After navigation or AJAX changes: Elements get re-indexed automatically on next click/type if stamps are stale. For manual re-index, call elements again.

Real mouse events: click uses CDP Input.dispatchMouseEvent (mousePressed + mouseReleased) instead of JS .click(). This triggers React/Vue/Angular synthetic event handlers that ignore plain .click() calls. Works reliably on SPAs like Instagram, GitHub, LinkedIn.

File uploads

upload uses CDP's DOM.setFileInputFiles to inject files directly into hidden elements — no OS file picker dialog. Works with Instagram, Twitter, any site with file uploads.

bjs upload ~/photos/image.jpg                    # auto-finds input[type=file]
bjs upload ~/docs/resume.pdf "input.file-drop"   # specific selector

Token efficiency

| Approach | Tokens per interaction | Notes | |----------|----------------------|-------| | bjs | ~50-200 | Indexed list, 1-line responses | | browser tool (snapshot) | ~2,000-5,000 | Full accessibility tree | | browser tool + thinking | ~3,000-8,000 | Plus reasoning to find refs |

Over a 10-step flow: ~1,500 tokens (bjs) vs ~30,000-80,000 (browser tool).

Typical flow

bjs open https://example.com       # Navigate
bjs elements                        # See what's clickable
bjs click 5                         # Click element [5]
bjs type 12 "hello world"          # Type into element [12]
bjs text                            # Read page content
bjs screenshot /tmp/result.png      # Verify visually

Shadow DOM support

bjs automatically pierces shadow DOM boundaries. Sites built with web components (Reddit, GitHub, etc.) work out of the box — elements, click, type, and text all recurse into shadow roots. No special flags needed.

Coordinate commands (iframes, captchas, overlays)

When you can't use click by index — e.g. the target is inside a cross-origin iframe (captcha checkbox, payment form, OAuth widget) — use coordinate-based commands that dispatch real CDP Input events at the OS level. These bypass all DOM boundaries.

Workflow for clicking inside an iframe:

bjs iframe-rect 'iframe[title*="hCaptcha"]'    # Get bounding box
# Output: x=95 y=440 w=302 h=76 center=(246, 478)

bjs click-xy 125 458                            # Click checkbox position

iframe-rect returns the iframe's position on the page. Add offsets to target specific elements inside it (e.g. a checkbox is typically near the left side).

Other uses:

• hover-xy — trigger hover menus, tooltips that need mouse position
• drag-xy — slider controls, drag-and-drop, canvas interactions
• click-xy --double — double-click to select text, expand items
• click-xy --right — context menus

When to use coordinate commands vs click:

• click — always preferred when the element shows up in elements
• click-xy — only when the target is inside a cross-origin iframe or otherwise unreachable by DOM indexing

Tips

• elements with a CSS selector narrows scope: bjs elements ".modal"
• eval runs arbitrary JS and returns the result — use for custom extraction
• text caps at 8KB — enough for most pages, won't blow up context
• html caps at 10KB — for inspecting specific elements
• Pipe through grep to filter: bjs elements | grep -i "submit\|login"