OpenCLI Operate — Browser Automation for AI Agents Control Chrome step-by-step via CLI. Reuses existing login sessions — no passwords needed. Prerequisites opencli doctor
Verify extension + daemon connectivity
Requires: Chrome running + OpenCLI Browser Bridge extension installed.
Critical Rules
ALWAYS use
state
to inspect the page, NEVER use
screenshot
—
state
returns structured DOM with
[N]
element indices, is instant and costs zero tokens.
screenshot
requires vision processing and is slow. Only use
screenshot
when the user explicitly asks to save a visual.
ALWAYS use
click
/
type
/
select
for interaction, NEVER use
eval
to click or type
—
eval "el.click()"
bypasses scrollIntoView and CDP click pipeline, causing failures on off-screen elements. Use
state
to find the
[N]
index, then
click
GOOD: open + inspect in one call (saves 1 round trip)
opencli operate open https://example.com && opencli operate state
GOOD: fill form in one call (saves 2 round trips)
opencli operate type 3 "hello" && opencli operate type 4 "world" && opencli operate click 7
GOOD: type + verify in one call
opencli operate type 5 "test@example.com" && opencli operate get value 5
GOOD: click + wait + state in one call (for page-changing clicks)
opencli operate click 12 && opencli operate wait time 1 && opencli operate state
BAD: separate calls for each action (wasteful)
opencli operate type 3 "hello"
Don't do this
opencli operate type 4 "world"
when you can chain
opencli operate click 7
all three together
- Page-changing — always put last
- in a chain (subsequent commands see stale indices):
- open
- ,
- back
- ,
- click
- Rule
-
- Chain when you already know the indices. Run
- state
- separately when you need to discover indices first.
- Core Workflow
- Navigate
- :
- opencli operate open
- Inspect
- :
- opencli operate state
- → elements with
- [N]
- indices
- Interact
-
- use indices —
- click
- ,
- type
- ,
- select
- ,
- keys
- Wait
- (if needed):
- opencli operate wait selector ".loaded"
- or
- wait text "Success"
- Verify
- :
- opencli operate state
- or
- opencli operate get value
- Repeat
-
- browser stays open between commands
- Save
- write a TS adapter to
~/.opencli/clis/
/ .ts Commands Navigation opencli operate open < url
Open URL (page-changing)
opencli operate back
Go back (page-changing)
opencli operate scroll down
Scroll (up/down, --amount N)
opencli operate scroll up --amount 1000 Inspect (free & instant) opencli operate state
Structured DOM with [N] indices — PRIMARY tool
opencli operate screenshot [ path.png ]
Save visual to file — ONLY for user deliverables
Get (free & instant) opencli operate get title
Page title
opencli operate get url
Current URL
opencli operate get text < index
Element text content
opencli operate get value < index
Input/textarea value (use to verify after type)
opencli operate get html
Full page HTML
opencli operate get html --selector "h1"
Scoped HTML
opencli operate get attributes < index
Element attributes
Interact opencli operate click < index
Click element [N]
opencli operate type < index
"text"
Type into element [N]
opencli operate select < index
"option"
Select dropdown
opencli operate keys "Enter"
Press key (Enter, Escape, Tab, Control+a)
Wait Three variants — use the right one for the situation: opencli operate wait time 3
Wait N seconds (fixed delay)
opencli operate wait selector ".loaded"
Wait until element appears in DOM
opencli operate wait selector ".spinner" --timeout 5000
With timeout (default 30s)
opencli operate wait text "Success"
Wait until text appears on page
- When to wait
- After open on SPAs, after click that triggers async loading, before eval on dynamically rendered content. Extract (free & instant, read-only) Use eval ONLY for reading data. Never use it to click, type, or navigate. opencli operate eval "document.title" opencli operate eval "JSON.stringify([...document.querySelectorAll('h2')].map(e => e.textContent))"
IMPORTANT: wrap complex logic in IIFE to avoid "already declared" errors
- opencli operate
- eval
- "(function(){ const items = [...document.querySelectorAll('.item')]; return JSON.stringify(items.map(e => e.textContent)); })()"
- Selector safety
- Always use fallback selectors — querySelector returns null on miss:
BAD: crashes if selector misses
opencli operate eval "document.querySelector('.title').textContent"
GOOD: fallback with || or ?.
opencli operate eval "(document.querySelector('.title') || document.querySelector('h1') || {textContent:''}).textContent" opencli operate eval "document.querySelector('.title')?.textContent ?? 'not found'" Network (API Discovery) opencli operate network
Show captured API requests (auto-captured since open)
opencli operate network --detail 3
Show full response body of request #3
opencli operate network --all
Include static resources
Sedimentation (Save as CLI) opencli operate init hn/top
Generate adapter scaffold at ~/.opencli/clis/hn/top.ts
opencli operate verify hn/top
Test the adapter (adds --limit 3 only if limit arg is defined)
init auto-detects the domain from the active browser session (no need to specify it) init creates the file + populates site , name , domain , and columns from current page verify runs the adapter end-to-end and prints output; if no limit arg exists in the adapter, it won't pass --limit 3 Session opencli operate close
Close automation window
Example: Extract HN Stories opencli operate open https://news.ycombinator.com opencli operate state
See [1] a "Story 1", [2] a "Story 2"...
opencli operate eval "JSON.stringify([...document.querySelectorAll('.titleline a')].slice(0,5).map(a => ({title: a.textContent, url: a.href})))" opencli operate close Example: Fill a Form opencli operate open https://httpbin.org/forms/post opencli operate state
See [3] input "Customer Name", [4] input "Telephone"
opencli operate type 3 "OpenCLI" && opencli operate type 4 "555-0100" opencli operate get value 3
Verify: "OpenCLI"
opencli operate close Saving as Reusable CLI — Complete Workflow Step-by-step sedimentation flow:
1. Explore the website
opencli operate open https://news.ycombinator.com opencli operate state
Understand DOM structure
2. Discover APIs (crucial for high-quality adapters)
opencli operate eval "fetch('/api/...').then(r=>r.json())"
Trigger API calls
opencli operate network
See captured API requests
opencli operate network --detail 0
Inspect response body
3. Generate scaffold
opencli operate init hn/top
Creates ~/.opencli/clis/hn/top.ts
4. Edit the adapter (fill in func logic)
- If API found: use fetch() directly (Strategy.PUBLIC or COOKIE)
- If no API: use page.evaluate() for DOM extraction (Strategy.UI)
5. Verify
opencli operate verify hn/top
Runs the adapter and shows output
6. If verify fails, edit and retry
7. Close when done
opencli operate close
Example adapter:
// ~/.opencli/clis/hn/top.ts
import
{
cli
,
Strategy
}
from
'@jackwener/opencli/registry'
;
cli
(
{
site
:
'hn'
,
name
:
'top'
,
description
:
'Top Hacker News stories'
,
domain
:
'news.ycombinator.com'
,
strategy
:
Strategy
.
PUBLIC
,
browser
:
false
,
args
:
[
{
name
:
'limit'
,
type
:
'int'
,
default
:
5
}
]
,
columns
:
[
'rank'
,
'title'
,
'score'
,
'url'
]
,
func
:
async
(
_page
,
kwargs
)
=>
{
const
limit
=
Math
.
min
(
Math
.
max
(
1
,
kwargs
.
limit
??
5
)
,
50
)
;
const
resp
=
await
fetch
(
'https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json'
)
;
const
ids
=
await
resp
.
json
(
)
;
return
Promise
.
all
(
ids
.
slice
(
0
,
limit
)
.
map
(
async
(
id
:
number
,
i
:
number
)
=>
{
const
item
=
await
(
await
fetch
(
https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/
${
id
}
.json
)
)
.
json
(
)
;
return
{
rank
:
i
+
1
,
title
:
item
.
title
,
score
:
item
.
score
,
url
:
item
.
url
??
''
}
;
}
)
)
;
}
,
}
)
;
Save to
~/.opencli/clis/
BAD: form.submit() often silently fails
opencli operate eval "document.querySelector('form').submit()"
GOOD: construct the URL and navigate
opencli operate
open
"https://github.com/search?q=opencli&type=repositories"
GitHub DOM changes frequently
— Prefer
data-testid
attributes when available; they are more stable than class names or tag structure.
SPA pages need
wait
before extraction
— After
open
or
click
on single-page apps, the DOM isn't ready immediately. Always
wait selector
or
wait text
before
eval
.
Use
state
before clicking
— Run
opencli operate state
to inspect available interactive elements and their indices. Never guess indices from memory.
evaluate
runs in browser context
—
page.evaluate()
in adapters executes inside the browser. Node.js APIs (
fs
,
path
,
process
) are NOT available. Use
fetch()
for network calls, DOM APIs for page data.
Backticks in
page.evaluate
break JSON storage
— When writing adapters that will be stored/transported as JSON, avoid template literals inside
page.evaluate
. Use string concatenation or function-style evaluate:
// BAD: template literal backticks break when adapter is in JSON
page
.
evaluate
(
document.querySelector("
${
selector
}
")
)
// GOOD: function-style evaluate
page
.
evaluate
(
(
sel
)
=>
document
.
querySelector
(
sel
)
,
selector
)
Troubleshooting
Error
Fix
"Browser not connected"
Run
opencli doctor
"attach failed: chrome-extension://"
Disable 1Password temporarily
Element not found
opencli operate scroll down && opencli operate state
Stale indices after page change
Run
opencli operate state
again to get fresh indices