Browser
One library, two engines. omowright ships inside this skill; choose the engine before you act:
| You need | Engine | Entry point |
|---|
| A site the user is signed into, their open tabs, a form, a click-through, a screenshot, web QA, an extension popup | attached — the user's own browser through BrowserSkill | connectBrowserSkill() |
| A throwaway profile, bot-scoring evasion, a CAPTCHA, network interception, a QA flight trace, coordinate control, headless runs | owned — a browser your code launches | connectPipe() / connectCloakProfile() — references/owned-engine/README.md |
| Text out of a URL, a 403 bypass, a platform that blocks fetchers | neither | the ultimate-browsing skill |
Attached is the default, because it is the only engine carrying the user's logins and the only
one where a human is a single call away. Never substitute one engine for the other silently: if
the attached engine is not set up, run the onboarding script and tell the user its one remaining
step.
Step 0 — load omowright and prove the stack
const { loadOmowright } = await import("<skill-root>/scripts/omowright.mjs")
const { omowright } = await loadOmowright() // { connectBrowserSkill, bskSnapshot, connectPipe, ... }
node "<skill-root>/scripts/browser-doctor.mjs" --json
| State | Meaning | Next |
|---|
ready | CLI, daemon and a connected browser | start a session |
no-cli / no-daemon / no-extension | something is missing | node "<skill-root>/scripts/browser-install.mjs" [--browser=<id>] prepares everything it can for the browser the user uses, then prints the single step only the user can do (relaunch that browser and click Enable); relay it verbatim, wait, re-run the doctor |
choose-browser | the signals do not single out one browser (Safari/Firefox default, an idle default while another browser runs, several in use) | nothing was installed; take the browser from memory or ask the user, then browser-install.mjs --browser=<id> |
no-browser-support | no Chromium-family profile on this machine | say so and stop |
Install into the browser the user actually uses, never into whatever happens to be on disk. Before
installing, check your memory for the user's browser; otherwise read the doctor's browser (picked
from the OS default browser, running apps and recent use — candidates shows the evidence). If memory
and the doctor disagree, or the doctor says choose-browser, ask the user. Pass the answer as
--browser=<id> and record it in memory. A Chrome that is merely installed is not their browser.
Never launch a headless browser because the attached one is missing. It has none of the
user's sessions, so every login turns into a ladder you should not be climbing. Say which state
you hit and ask.
The loop (attached)
const session = await omowright.connectBrowserSkill({ name: "<task>", focused: false })
try {
await session.navigate("https://example.com/", { waitUntil: "load" })
const { tree, refs, css } = await omowright.bskSnapshot(session, { interactive: true }) // OmOWright tree + refs, no trace in the page
await session.click({ selector: css.e3 }) // css[ref] is null inside shadow roots:
const vom = await session.observe({ maxTokens: 4000 }) // then read the daemon's own tree ...
await session.click("@e7") // ... and click its @eN ref
await session.fill(css.e5, "hello")
await session.press("Enter")
await session.waitForNavigation({ waitUntil: "load" })
const shot = await session.screenshot() // { buffer, width, height, captureId }
} finally {
await session.stop() // success AND failure; returns borrowed tabs
}
- Read before every action.
bskSnapshot refs and observe @eN refs are reissued on each
call; use a ref in the same cycle you read it.
- Navigation and large DOM changes stale every ref. Read again rather than reusing.
- Two identical failures mean change approach, not retry. A third identical attempt is a defect.
- Borrow a user tab explicitly (
tabList({ scope: "user" }), tabBorrow(id), tabReturn(id)).
Borrowing prompts the user; never invent tab ids and never repeat a denied borrow.
- Always
stop() the session, on success and on failure.
Every method, its options, and the failure codes are in references/commands.md.
When a human is the only way through
Login, CAPTCHA, OTP, a payment confirmation, a consent dialog:
const outcome = await session.requestHelp({ prompt: "<what you need done>", targets: ["@e4"], timeoutMs: 300_000 })
Then read the page again. Respect a cancelled or timed_out outcome; do not work around it by
changing the extension's automation settings.
Rules
- Never read credentials through the page. No
evaluate that extracts a password, token,
cookie or recovery code. The value of the attached engine is that the browser is already signed in.
- Never clear cookies, cache or site data. It is the user's real profile; clearing it logs them
out everywhere. No flow here needs it.
focused: false by default. The browser belongs to someone who is probably using it.
- One short, named session per task, always stopped.
- Bot-scored or WAF targets go to the owned engine. The attached engine's daemon enables console
capture on every tab it drives, which is a known automation signal; CloakBrowser through
connectCloakProfile() is the stealth path.
Where the rest lives
| Topic | Read |
|---|
| Session methods, targets, options, error codes | references/commands.md |
| Installing: CLI, daemon, extension, the one human step, blocklisted extension | references/install.md |
| Agent on one machine, browser on another | references/remote.md |
| Owned engine: launch, snapshot ladder, network, frames, human handoff | references/owned-engine/README.md |
| Reading a 1Password vault the user has unlocked | references/recipes/1password.md |