Fast headless browser for AI coding agents. A persistent Bun daemon over Playwright Chromium, driven by a terse CLI — navigate, read, click, snapshot, screenshot, and replay, with state held across calls so each command is a single fast round-trip.
abx is one corner of an agent fleet alongside
vmlab (cross-OS orchestrator) and
guiport (native desktop driver).
vmlab's abx transport drives this for web verification.
# Homebrew (recommended) — universal binary, auto-updates with `brew upgrade`
brew install edihasaj/abx/abx
# fetch the Chromium build abx drives (one-time)
abx install-browserinstall-browser shells out to bunx/npx to run Playwright's own installer.
No Node/Bun on the machine? Either install one (brew install bun) and re-run,
or point abx at an existing browser:
export ABX_CHROMIUM_PATH="/Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome"From source:
git clone https://github.com/edihasaj/abx && cd abx
bun install && bun run build # → dist/abxOn Windows, install Bun and Node.js first, then build dist/abx.exe,
dist/abx-server.js, and dist/live.mjs. The CLI launches the server bundle
through Bun in a detached process so browser state survives the invoking shell.
abx goto https://example.com # navigate (server starts on first call)
abx text # page text
abx snapshot -i # interactive elements with @ref handles
abx click @e3 # act on a ref
abx screenshot shot.png # capture
abx stop # shut the daemon downState (current page, cookies, tabs) persists between calls via the background server, so multi-step flows don't re-launch the browser each time.
| Group | Commands |
|---|---|
| Navigation | goto <url> · back · forward · reload · url |
| Content | text · html [sel] · links · forms · accessibility |
| Interaction | click · fill · select · hover · type · press · scroll · wait · viewport · upload |
| Inspection | js · eval · css · attrs · console · network · dialog · cookies · storage · perf · is |
| Visual | screenshot · pdf · responsive |
| Snapshot | snapshot [-i] [-c] [-d N] [-s sel] [-D] [-a] [-C] · diff <url1> <url2> |
| Tabs | tabs · tab <id> · newtab [url] · closetab [id] |
| Live Chrome | live <cmd> — drive your real Chrome over CDP (:9222) |
| Server | status · stop · restart · useragent · header · cookie |
Run abx --help for the full surface, or abx --version for the build.
After snapshot, elements get @e1, @e2… handles usable as selectors
(click @e3, fill @e4 "value"). -C surfaces non-ARIA clickables as @c1…
abx live <cmd> drives your real, logged-in Chrome over the DevTools protocol
(port 9222) instead of the headless Chromium — useful for authenticated
sessions. Start Chrome with remote debugging first (see scripts/). Live mode
supports tab creation with abx live newtab [url]; the new tab becomes the
target of the next live command.
ABX_CHROMIUM_PATH— launch a specific Chromium/Chrome binary instead of Playwright's download.PLAYWRIGHT_BROWSERS_PATH— where the Chromium build lives (Playwright default).--proxy <url>/--headed— per-invocation global flags.
MIT. See LICENSE.
Author: Edi Hasaj.
