[HN Gopher] Show HN: Webctl - Browser automation for agents base...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Webctl - Browser automation for agents based on CLI
       instead of MCP
        
       Hi HN, I built webctl because I was frustrated by the gap between
       curl and full browser automation frameworks like Playwright.  I
       initially built this to solve a personal headache: I wanted an AI
       agent to handle project management tasks on my company's intranet.
       I needed it to persist cookies across sessions (to handle SSO) and
       then scrape a Kanban board.  Existing AI browser tools (like
       current MCP implementations) often force unsolicited data into the
       context window--dumping the full accessibility tree, console logs,
       and network errors whether you asked for them or not.  webctl is an
       attempt to solve this with a Unix-style CLI:  - Filter before
       context: You pipe the output to standard tools. webctl snapshot
       --interactive-only | head -n 20 means the LLM only sees exactly
       what I want it to see.  - Daemon Architecture: It runs a persistent
       background process. The goal is to keep the browser state
       (cookies/session) alive while you run discrete, stateless CLI
       commands.  - Semantic targeting: It uses ARIA roles (e.g.,
       role=button name~="Submit") rather than fragile CSS selectors.
       Disclaimer: The daemon logic for state persistence is still a bit
       experimental, but the architecture feels like the right direction
       for building local, token-efficient agents.  It's basically
       "Playwright for the terminal."
        
       Author : cosinusalpha
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2026-01-14 14:34 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | philipbjorge wrote:
       | This looks remarkably similar to https://github.com/vercel-
       | labs/agent-browser
       | 
       | How is it different?
        
         | hugs wrote:
         | vibium clicker, too.
         | https://github.com/VibiumDev/vibium/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.m...
         | 
         | "browser automation for ai agents" is a popular idea these
         | days.
        
       | renegat0x0 wrote:
       | A little bit different, but also allows to scrape efficiently.
       | Json http communication rather than cli.
       | 
       | https://github.com/rumca-js/crawler-buddy
       | 
       | More like a framework for other mechanisms
        
       | binalpatel wrote:
       | Cool to see lots of people independently come to "CLIs are all
       | you need". I'm still not sure if it's a short-term bandaid
       | because agents are so good at terminal use or if it's part of a
       | longer term trend but it's definitely felt much more seamless to
       | me then MCPs.
       | 
       | (my one of many contribution
       | https://github.com/caesarnine/binsmith)
        
       | grigio wrote:
       | is there a benchmark? there are a lot of scraping agents
       | nowdays..
        
       | randito wrote:
       | If you look at Elixir keynote for Phoenix.new -- a cool agentic
       | coding tool -- you'll see some hints about a browser control
       | using a API tool call. It's called "web" in the video.
       | 
       | Video: https://youtu.be/ojL_VHc4gLk?t=2132
       | 
       | More discussion: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/23/phoenix-
       | new/
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2026-01-14 23:00 UTC)