Both tables grew one entry per distinct key and never shrank, so a long-running
SDK client or a public serve process accumulated state for every endpoint or
identity it had ever seen. GC cannot reclaim them while the pool and limiter
still reference them.
Cap the pool at 64 endpoint buckets and the limiter at 4096 buckets. Both evict
useless state first: connections past the idle timeout the server has likely
dropped anyway, and buckets that have fully refilled, which carry no throttling
information. Only then fall back to evicting the oldest entry.
Evicting a limiter bucket resets throttling for that identity, which is the
deliberate trade: an attacker cycling identities faster than they go idle can
regain tokens, but unbounded growth would take the process down instead.
Requiring an explicit tab_id forced every navigate or close through a
preceding tabs_list call, which costs an MCP client a full round trip just to
learn the ID the browser already considers current.
navigate and tabs_close now resolve the active tab when tab_id is omitted,
matching the screenshot tool. Resolution is explicit rather than forwarding
None into the SDK, so the acting tool knows which tab it touched; tabs_close
reports it, since closing the wrong tab is not recoverable.
This stays in the MCP layer: the SDK and CLI signatures are unchanged.
Expose a conservative browser-cli tool surface to MCP hosts without
duplicating browser-control logic: every tool is a thin adapter over the
existing Python SDK, and each call builds a fresh BrowserCLI so the real
browser stays the only owner of tab and navigation state.
The MCP process resolves BROWSER_CLI_PROFILE, BROWSER_CLI_REMOTE, and
BROWSER_CLI_KEY explicitly instead of passing None down, so a pinned server
targets one browser rather than fanning listing calls out across every
connected browser. Explicit tool arguments still win.
Tool names keep a browser_ prefix for hosts that expose raw MCP names, while
BROWSER_CLI_MCP_TOOL_PREFIX lets hosts that already namespace by server drop
it and avoid names like browser_cli_testing_browser_tabs_list.
JavaScript evaluation, raw commands, storage writes, and session import stay
unexposed, and Streamable HTTP refuses non-loopback binds because the endpoint
has no authentication of its own; remote browsers go through browser-cli's
authenticated remote transport instead.
MCP stays an optional extra, so normal installs are unaffected.
- Resolve bare remote hosts through the remote registry when one explicit port is stored.
- Preserve bare host behavior when no unique explicit-port registry match exists.
- Route requested remote targets through the new registry resolver.
- Add registry tests for unique and ambiguous explicit-port matches.
- Bump package and extension versions to 0.16.6.
- Render explicit --remote clients results with profile-only labels.
- Suppress remote host group headers for scoped client queries.
- Keep global and mixed client listings grouped by host.
- Update client and CLI tests for scoped remote rendering.
- Bump browser-cli and extension versions to 0.16.5.
- Add SSH-style server identity keys and known-host verification for remote serve endpoints.
- Add remote add/list/remove commands for explicit endpoint persistence.
- Fix remote clients listing to fan out through target discovery instead of ambiguous auto-routing.
- Add URL glob matching for tabs filter and count with extension tests.
- Add n8n credential pinning for server public keys or SHA256 fingerprints.
- Remove obsolete compat shim behavior while keeping empty compat seams for future protocol changes.
- Bump browser-cli to 0.16.4 and n8n node to 0.3.1.
- Cover known-hosts, remote registry, compat seams, n8n protocol verification, and URL matching with tests.
- Add the n8n community node package with credentials, command mapping, direct serve TCP client, and browser-cli protocol crypto helpers.
- Cover Ed25519 signing, canonical JSON, PQ transport encryption, request mapping, and security behavior with unit tests.
- Harden serve-http with per-address rate limiting, an 8 MB request body cap, and clear warnings when binding plain HTTP beyond loopback.
- Stop one-shot --key overrides from being persisted automatically; document explicit remote trust and keep key-management behind the keys policy tier.
- Make HTML-to-Markdown conversion safer by bounding tree depth and dropping unsafe link/image URL schemes.
- Bump package and extension release metadata to 0.16.3.
- Add auth policy to update existing authorized_keys allow policies locally or over remote serve.
- Support key lookup by public key or exact name, with safe, all, server-default, and category-based modes.
- Add questionary-powered interactive key selection and checkbox policy editing with current policy preselected.
- Show policy descriptions in auth keys output so each capability is easier to understand.
- Gate the new remote control command behind the existing keys policy category and include protocol routing/compat updates.
- Bump real-browser-cli to 0.16.2 and lock the new questionary dependency.
- Cover local, remote, validation, and policy-category behavior in tests.
- Gate TCP serve commands with safe-by-default policies, per-key allow tokens, per-key rate limiting, and audit labels.
- Reuse authenticated encrypted remote sessions and parallelize/caches multi-browser fanout to reduce repeated handshake roundtrips.
- Increase paged native-host batch size with extension-side byte budgeting to speed large tab listings safely.
- Point install output at public Chrome Web Store / Firefox AMO listings by default, with --dev preserving unpacked workflows.
- Share search-engine metadata between CLI and SDK and bump the package/extension version to 0.16.0.
- Cover the new security, pooling, paging, install, and fanout behavior with expanded Python and extension tests.
- Add browser source grouping metadata to SDK-created tabs, groups,
list results, and aggregate count results.
- Render grouped local/remote browser tables consistently for clients,
tabs, groups, windows, sessions, and remote status output.
- Document remote control, auth, HTTP gateway usage, and the refreshed
project structure in the README.
- Add coverage for grouped output and BrowserCounts browser_groups.
- Bump the Python package, extension manifest, and lockfile to 0.15.6.
- Add a just publish helper for building and publishing release artifacts.
- Allow remote host aliases passed via --browser to fan out for read-only
multi-browser SDK paths while preserving strict routing for mutating commands.
- Add remote host grouping and scoped profile labels to tabs tree output so
global views avoid repeated host prefixes.
- Carry browser family metadata through remote targets, tabs, and groups and
style tree browser labels by family.
- Split CLI rendering helpers into a typed rendering package with dedicated
common, label, tabs-tree, and windows-tree modules.
- Bump browser-cli and extension versions to 0.15.5.
- Cover the new routing and rendering behavior with unit and CLI tests.
- Add helper scripts for Chrome Web Store verified CRX uploads using a dedicated RSA upload key protected by GPG.
- Document the verified upload packaging flow and ignore local signing secrets.
- Add npm packaging entry point for signed webstore CRX artifacts.
- Chunk large SDK tab close batches to avoid native-host response timeouts.
- Bump project and extension versions to 0.15.4 with matching tests.
- Split auth into focused package modules for agent keys, file keys,
signing, and post-quantum transport helpers while keeping the public
browser_cli.auth import surface intact.
- Move transport encoding internals into a package with separate codec and
binary-hoisting helpers, preserving browser_cli.transport compatibility.
- Extract remote TCP auth/socket helpers and serve challenge setup out of the
runtime paths to make connection handling easier to reason about.
- Move the extension markdown extractor into a dedicated content/markdown
folder with separate root selection, code normalization, renderer, and utils.
- Centralize CLI Rich rendering helpers for tab/window tree and table output,
and add rendering tests for the shared builders.
- Remove local typing ignores in SDK/decorator/script plumbing and bump the
package and extension version to 0.15.3.
- Add shared rendering helpers for width-aware tree labels, truncation, and no-wrap Rich text.
- Preserve tab index and group window metadata through the extension and SDK factories.
- Render tab trees in browser/window/index order with grouped tab details and optional shortened URLs.
- Reuse the tab tree labels in window trees to keep output compact and consistent.
- Cover legacy missing-index responses, grouped/collapsed tabs, URL display, and rendering helpers with tests.
- Add a neutral WebExtension API adapter that uses Firefox browser.* or Chromium chrome.* without mutating globals.
- Switch extension runtime code to the adapter and add Firefox-specific typings for tabs, windows, tab groups, storage, scripting, and native messaging ports.
- Fix Firefox temporary add-on instructions to load the packaged manifest with background.scripts instead of the Chromium service worker manifest.
- Detect Firefox in clients.list via runtime.getBrowserInfo and keep Chromium user-agent fallback support.
- Make navigate.open wait briefly for Firefox to replace initial about:blank with the requested URL.
- Add JS coverage for API selection, clients.list browser detection, and Firefox navigate.open URL polling.
- Bump package and extension version to 0.15.2.
- Add Firefox as an install target with native messaging manifest support.
- Generate Firefox-specific extension packages with Gecko metadata and AMO-compatible manifest transforms.
- Keep tab group commands available in Firefox through dynamic tab group API helpers.
- Avoid Firefox linter warnings for static tab group API references and direct eval tokens.
- Add Firefox packaging and installer regression coverage.
- Bump the package and extension version to 0.15.1.
- Rename the PyPI distribution from browser-cli to real-browser-cli after PyPI rejected the original name as too similar to an existing project.
- Keep the installed console command as browser-cli so user-facing CLI usage remains unchanged.
- Add README-based package metadata, author information, and project URLs so PyPI renders a proper project description.
- Centralize the PyPI distribution name for importlib.metadata version lookups used by the CLI, doctor command, and remote user agent.
- Document uv tool install, optional fast extra installation, and upgrade commands.
- Bump package and extension metadata to 0.14.3 for the republished release.
- Add the Chrome Web Store extension ID alongside the keyed testing ID.
- Register both extension origins in the native messaging host manifest.
- Update install output so users can distinguish testing and Web Store IDs.
- Add CLI coverage for the generated allowed_origins list.
- Drop the ServiceLink submodule, link-serve command, and serve --rpc mode.
- Remove the now-unused httpx dependency and regenerate uv.lock.
- Add a privacy policy for Chrome Web Store publication.
- Refresh extension icons and bump package/extension version to 0.14.2.
- Keep the native TCP serve path as the only remote-control endpoint.
- Add safe-by-default policy gates for raw command surfaces: command, script, and serve-http /command.
- Require explicit opt-ins for page reads, browser control, and high-risk commands such as dom.eval, storage.*, and screenshots.
- Remove all cookies support from CLI, SDK, extension commands, permissions, constants, docs, and tests.
- Add diagnostic, events, watch, workspace, remote, raw command, script, HTTP gateway, tree-view, session import/export, and extension info/capability commands.
- Add Chrome Web Store packaging that strips manifest.key while keeping local packages with a stable native-messaging extension ID.
- Bump browser-cli and extension version to 0.14.1 and cover the new behavior with pytest and extension packaging tests.
BREAKING CHANGE: cookies commands and the b.cookies SDK namespace have been removed; generic raw command execution now blocks non-safe commands unless explicitly allowed.
- Change nav open and open-wait to avoid activating newly created tabs unless
--focus is explicitly requested.
- Send background=true for default opens so older or remote extensions also
avoid stealing focus even if they ignore the new focus flag.
- Remove the redundant --bg flag from navigation and search CLI commands now
that no-focus/background behavior is the default.
- Thread focus support through the sync SDK, async SDK, tab helpers, and
workflow decorators.
- Update README and demo usage to document the new default and --focus opt-in.
- Bump package and extension metadata to 0.12.3.
- Add regression coverage for CLI help, wire payloads, and extension behavior.
- Respect the globally selected browser when renaming client aliases.
- Pass the resolved local profile into sync and async local transports so
BROWSER_CLI_PROFILE is honored consistently.
- Stop tabs.active from explicitly focusing the OS browser window, avoiding
virtual-desktop jumps during tab activation.
- Make window merging skip audible, unmuted windows so video playback windows
are not selected as merge targets.
- Bump the Python package and extension manifest versions to 0.12.2.
- Add regression coverage for browser selection and focus-stealing behavior.
- Add the ServiceLink submodule and register it in .gitmodules.
- Add a link-serve command that exposes selected browser-cli commands over an HTTP /rpc endpoint.
- Require bearer-token authentication by default, with explicit insecure opt-in for trusted loopback/local deployments.
- Allow the existing serve daemon to run the ServiceLink RPC endpoint alongside the native TCP remote server.
- Split client, native, remote, serve, markdown, and SDK internals into focused packages with direct imports.
- Move local and remote transport framing/protocol helpers behind clearer module boundaries.
- Break up the extension injected DOM logic into a separate content dispatch bundle and dedicated content modules.
- Add explicit client handling for passive remote discovery without noisy PQ warnings.
- Keep behavior covered with updated unit, integration, and extension tests.
Restructure the Python API and internals around composable namespaces and
a standalone transport/endpoint layer. Bump to 0.12.0.
Python API:
- Replace flat methods (b.tabs_list(), b.group_list()) with namespaces:
b.nav, b.tabs, b.groups, b.windows, b.dom, b.extract, b.page, b.storage,
b.cookies, b.session, b.perf, b.extension.
- Shrink browser_cli/__init__.py to a thin composition root; move all
behaviour into browser_cli/sdk/ (one module per namespace + factories,
base, routing).
Internals:
- Add browser_cli/transport.py and remote_transport.py to isolate IPC from
command logic; client.py now delegates instead of owning transport.
- Add browser_cli/endpoints.py for endpoint resolution and
browser_cli/errors.py for shared error types.
- Extract markdown rendering into browser_cli/markdown.py (out of extract).
- Add USER_AGENT to version_manager.
Tooling & tests:
- Add justfile with common dev tasks.
- Update CLI commands and demo to the namespaced API.
- Rework tests for the new layout; add test_transport.py and
test_refactor_boundaries.py to lock in module boundaries.
BREAKING CHANGE: flat API methods are removed in favour of namespaces
(e.g. b.tabs_list() -> b.tabs.list(), b.group_list() -> b.groups.list()).
Closing many tabs previously meant one IPC round-trip per tab
(tab.close() in a loop). Add a single batched path so callers can
close N tabs in one command, reusing the existing large-operation
throttle so the browser UI stays responsive.
- extension: tabs.close accepts tabIds: number[]; new branch feeds
the array through processInBatches/chrome.tabs.remove
- sdk: tabs_close(tab_ids=...) takes tab IDs or Tab objects; the
payload always carries "tabIds" (null when unused)
- tests: cover id-list and Tab-object batch close in test_api.py
- bump 0.10.3 -> 0.10.4 (pyproject.toml, manifest.json)
- Check Unix socket reachability with a real connection attempt instead of treating any existing path as active.
- Report ambiguous host-only remote aliases with actionable --remote/--browser examples.
- Update client tests to use listening Unix sockets and cover ambiguous remote alias errors.
- Bump package and extension versions to 0.10.2.
- Avoid resolving a saved remote alias when the requested profile is currently reachable as a local endpoint.
- Add a helper that checks the registry and local socket path before remote alias discovery.
- Cover the routing precedence with a client unit test.
- Bump package and extension versions to 0.10.1.
- Add throttled large-operation handling for tab, group, and session commands.
- Introduce performance profiles, audible-tab aware gentle mode, and job progress tracking.
- Support background session restores with status/cancel commands and lazy placeholders.
- Expose new perf and extension CLI groups plus matching Python SDK methods.
- Preserve pinned tabs during session snapshots and debounce auto-save updates.
- Bump browser-cli and extension versions to 0.10.0 and add pytest-cov to dev deps.
- Add coverage for performance controls, background jobs, lazy restores, and tab metadata.
- Position browser-cli as a CLI plus Python SDK in docs and package metadata.
- Add public target properties and a raw command escape hatch for unsupported commands.
- Add convenience helpers for opening, finding, closing, and accessing tabs.
- Add plural group aliases and a wait_for_selector DOM convenience alias.
- Extend bound Tab objects with screenshot, pin, refresh, load wait, and URL watch helpers.
- Preserve remote auth key configuration when binding remote Tab and Group objects.
- Bump project and extension versions to 0.9.9 and cover SDK additions with tests.
gpg-agent retains YubiKey entries after card removal but resets the
comment to "(none)". Treating those as valid keys causes auth to
succeed against a ghost identity — skip them so the caller gets None
and the missing-card error path fires correctly.
set_alpn_protocols(["browser-cli"]) caused TLS handshake failure
(no_application_protocol alert) when connecting through a reverse
proxy (e.g. Traefik) that terminates TLS but doesn't know the custom
ALPN. Plain TLS without ALPN negotiation works correctly.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Domain-like --remote endpoints default to port 443; :443 is optional
- _normalize_endpoint strips :443 before storage in remotes.json
- _load_remotes normalises keys on load (backward compat migration)
- _remote_display_name omits :443 for domain endpoints
- _resolve_connect_endpoint adds :443 back for TCP connection
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Port 443 → ssl.create_default_context().wrap_socket() before the
challenge handshake so Traefik TCP routers with TLS termination work.
Other ports stay plain TCP.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- compat.py → compat/ package: auth.py (auth-field normalizers),
commands.py (command-format shims), __init__.py (re-exports)
- Add _auth_0_9_3 transformer: normalizes pubkey to lowercase before auth
so clients < 0.9.3 sending uppercase hex are accepted
- adapt_auth() now called before auth check in serve.py; command extracted
after adapt_auth so future transformers can rename commands safely
- serve.py: deduplicate _recv_exact (import from client), unify
resp/resp_payload across Windows/Unix branches, require lowercase hex
pubkey (re.fullmatch), reorganize imports, drop unused os import
- client.py: move payload/framed construction inside branches (remote path
no longer serializes JSON it never uses); fix _is_valid_key_spec
operator precedence; import MAX_MSG_BYTES from version_manager
- auth.py: narrow except clause (ValueError instead of bare Exception)
- Bump version 0.9.2 → 0.9.3
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
A previous bug (fixed in fcd2e8b) caused str(AgentKey(...)) to be saved
as the key spec instead of the plain string "agent". This made
_load_private_key() return None, sending messages unsigned.
- _is_valid_key_spec() guards save_remote_key() against persisting
serialized objects or other non-spec values
- key_for_remote() rejects already-persisted corrupt specs so fallback
key loading still works
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
browser-cli.auth.keys and browser-cli.auth.trust are handled by serve.py
directly and never need a _route profile, so they no longer trigger
_auto_route_remote (which would open a second connection just to discover
available browser profiles).
Also fixes _auto_route_remote receiving an already-loaded AgentKey object
instead of the key spec string — the nested send_command call couldn't
re-load it for signing, causing auth failures.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- authorized_keys format extended to '<hex> [optional-name]'
- auth keys repurposed: shows server's trusted keys (Name/Public Key table)
instead of local client keys; --remote queries the remote serve instance
- auth trust gains --name flag for labelling keys; --remote pushes the key
to the remote server's authorized_keys
- serve.py handles browser-cli.auth.keys and browser-cli.auth.trust as
server-side commands (authenticated, never forwarded to native host)
- serve.py reloads authorized_keys from disk on every connection so
auth trust --remote takes effect immediately without restarting serve
- auth show unchanged: still prints your own client public key
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- remote_browser_targets(), _auto_route_remote(), active_browser_targets()
now accept and forward the key parameter so pubkey auth works during
the initial browser-cli.targets discovery call
- _multi_browser_targets() in tabs/groups/windows/session commands now
reads key from ctx.obj and passes it through
- send_command() auto-saves the key spec (e.g. "agent") to remotes.json
on first explicit use; subsequent calls to the same remote reuse it
without requiring --key every time
- Added save_remote_key() / key_for_remote() helpers (mirrors token helpers)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Security:
- serve.py: server now sends nonce challenge before accepting any command;
clients sign nonce + SHA256(canonical_payload) with Ed25519 key
- New --authorized-keys FILE option for serve; token auth still works as fallback
- Connection limit: BoundedSemaphore(64) in serve.py
- Secure file creation with os.open(..., 0o600) for token/key files
- New auth.py module: keygen, file key load/save, SSH agent protocol (pure Python),
sign/verify helpers compatible with both file keys and agent-held keys (YubiKey,
TPM, gpg-agent)
Features:
- YubiKey support via SSH agent protocol — no new runtime deps, just $SSH_AUTH_SOCK
- New `browser-cli auth` command group: keygen, trust, show, keys
- Global --key PATH flag (or BROWSER_CLI_KEY env) selects signing key;
pass "agent" or "agent:<selector>" to use SSH agent key
- BrowserCLI Python API gains key= parameter
Bug fixes (11 issues across two review passes):
- client.py: check response is not None before json.loads
- native_host.py: _read_exact_stream loop handles EINTR short reads; fix Windows
Listener leak on accept error
- __init__.py: open_wait / tabs_watch_url raise RuntimeError instead of silent None
- extension/tabs.ts: dedupe skips tabs without URL; tabsSort uses pendingUrl fallback
- extension/session.ts: removeListener before addListener prevents duplicate handlers
Breaking: TCP serve protocol now sends a challenge frame first (v0.9.0)
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- tabs.py: validate screenshot data URL prefix and catch binascii.Error
instead of silently writing a zero-byte file or crashing with a raw traceback
- serve.py: add 30 s recv timeout on client connections to prevent unbounded
thread accumulation; use hmac.compare_digest for constant-time token check
- native_host.py: bind Unix socket before _registry_add to eliminate the
window where the registry points to an unbound path; cap paging loop at
ceil(10000/PAGE_SIZE) iterations to guard against a misbehaving extension;
remove dead no-hello fast-path queue that was registered but never consumed
- __init__.py: narrow _apply_tab_filter except to (AttributeError, TypeError)
so broken filter functions raise instead of silently returning wrong results
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
daniel156161
