PinchTab is a standalone HTTP server, shipped as a single Go binary, that gives AI agents direct control over Chrome. Agents drive it through a CLI, an HTTP API, or an MCP server, and it typically runs in the background as a user-level daemon so several agent tools can reuse the same browser control plane.
Agents read pages as accessibility-tree snapshots with element refs, or as extracted text (about 800 tokens per page), instead of raw HTML or screenshots. A ref identifies a DOM node, so the same ref survives a change of filter or depth and expires only when the page navigates to a new document. The server manages named profiles that keep cookies, logins, and extensions across restarts, and runs multiple isolated Chrome instances, headless or headed, each behind a lightweight bridge runtime. It can also attach to externally managed Chrome instances.
The default posture is local-first: the server binds to loopback, sensitive endpoint families and attach mode are off, and browsing is restricted to locally hosted websites until a person explicitly widens the allowlist. Docker containers and distributed setups across remote machines are supported but treated as operator-managed deployments to secure explicitly. There is no telemetry.
Beyond agent browsing, PinchTab audits whole sites (screenshots, console errors, broken assets, accessibility score, Core Web Vitals, and security findings) and compares two site versions visually as a CI gate. An optional CloakBrowser provider handles sites that fingerprint stock Chromium.
End-to-end agent-loop cost against Agent-browser on the Anthropic API, as the percentage by which PinchTab is cheaper:
| Scope | Cost | Requests | Tokens |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Haiku (10 steps) | 9.5% | 23.0% | 17.9% |
| Extended Haiku (24 steps) | 19.6% | 31.1% | 26.2% |
| Extended Sonnet (24 steps) | 20.3% | 29.4% | 25.3% |
Features
- Token-efficient pages: text extraction at about 800 tokens per page, 5 to 13 times cheaper than screenshots
- Stable element refs: refs denote DOM nodes and persist until navigation to a new document
- Persistent profiles: named browser profiles keep cookies, logins, and extensions across restarts
- Multi-instance: parallel Chrome processes with isolated profiles, headless or headed
- CLI, HTTP API, and MCP: the same control plane from the command line, plain HTTP, or an MCP client
- Local-first security: loopback binding, sensitive endpoints off, and a local-only website allowlist by default
- Site audits: screenshots, console errors, broken assets, accessibility, Core Web Vitals, and visual diffs for CI
- Remote and attach modes: connect to several PinchTab servers or attach to Chrome running in remote debug mode
- Agent skill and plugins: a skill copied into detected coding-agent homes, plus plugins for Grok Build and OpenClaw
- CloakBrowser provider: an optional drop-in browser for sites that fingerprint stock Chromium
- ARM64 support: runs on Raspberry Pi with automatic Chromium detection
