Native Mode (Experimental)

agent-browser includes an experimental native Rust daemon that communicates with Chrome directly via the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), eliminating the Node.js and Playwright dependencies entirely.

Enabling Native Mode

Native mode is opt-in. Enable it with the --native flag or the AGENT_BROWSER_NATIVE environment variable.

CLI Flag

agent-browser --native open example.com
agent-browser --native snapshot
agent-browser --native close

Environment Variable

Set AGENT_BROWSER_NATIVE=1 to avoid passing the flag on every command:

export AGENT_BROWSER_NATIVE=1
agent-browser open example.com
agent-browser snapshot
agent-browser close

Config File

Add "native": true to your agent-browser.json:

{"native": true}

Architecture Comparison

	Default (Node.js)	Native (`--native`)
Runtime	Node.js + Playwright	Pure Rust binary
Protocol	Playwright protocol	Direct CDP / WebDriver
Install size	Larger (Node.js + npm deps)	Smaller (single binary)
Browser support	Chromium, Firefox, WebKit	Chromium, Safari (via WebDriver)
Stability	Stable	Experimental

What Works

All core commands are supported in native mode:

Navigation: open, back, forward, reload
Interaction: click, fill, type, press, hover, select, check, uncheck, scroll, focus, clear, upload, drag
Observation: snapshot, screenshot, eval, get text/html/value/attr/count/box/styles, is visible/enabled/checked
State: cookies get/set/clear, storage local/session, state save/load/list
Tabs: tab new/list/close, tab switching
Emulation: set viewport, set device, set geo, user agent, timezone, locale
Streaming: WebSocket screencast and remote input
Diffing: diff snapshot, diff url
Recording: record start/stop
Profiling: profiler start/stop, trace start/stop

Known Limitations

Firefox and WebKit are not yet supported (Chromium and Safari only)
Playwright trace format is not available (native tracing uses Chrome's built-in tracing)
HAR export is not available
Network route interception uses CDP Fetch domain instead of Playwright's route API

Switching Between Modes

The native daemon and Node.js daemon share the same session socket. You cannot run both simultaneously for the same session. Close the current daemon before switching:

agent-browser close
export AGENT_BROWSER_NATIVE=1
agent-browser open example.com