/lightpanda-browser

name: lightpanda-browser
description: 'Lightweight headless browser automation via Lightpanda and agent-browser CLI: 9x lower memory, 11x faster than Chromium, for scraping and DOM interaction without rendering. Triggers on: "lightpanda", "lightweight browser", "fast headless browser", "headless scraping", "low memory browser", "browser without rendering".'
metadata:
  version: 1.0.1
  category: visualization
  tags: [browser, headless, scraping, lightweight]
  difficulty: beginner

Lightpanda Browser — Fast Headless Automation

Headless browser automation using [Lightpanda](https://github.com/lightpanda-io/browser) as the backend engine, controlled through the `agent-browser` CLI via CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol).

**When to use this over agent-browser:**

| Use Lightpanda | Use agent-browser (Chromium) | | -------------------------------- | ---------------------------------- | | Web scraping / data extraction | Screenshots, PDFs, visual testing | | Form automation / submission | Video recording / visual debugging | | API response inspection | CSS layout verification | | DOM traversal / content parsing | Mobile device emulation (iOS) | | CI environments with limited RAM | Full browser extension support | | High-volume parallel sessions | Sites requiring full rendering |

**Triggers:**

• "lightpanda", "lightweight browser", "fast headless"
• "scrape with low memory", "headless scraping"
• "browser without rendering", "DOM-only browser"
• "fast browser automation", "efficient scraping"
• "is lightpanda faster than chromium?", "which headless browser uses less memory?"
• "how do I scrape without chromium?", "can I run a browser with less RAM?"
• Any browser task where visual output is not needed

---

Prerequisites

Install Lightpanda

# macOS (Apple Silicon)
curl -fsSL https://github.com/nichochar/install-lightpanda/raw/main/install.sh | bash

# Or build from source
git clone https://github.com/lightpanda-io/browser.git
cd browser && zig build -Doptimize=ReleaseSafe

Install agent-browser (if not already present)

brew install agent-browser

Verify installation

lightpanda --version
agent-browser --version

---

Core Workflow

Every session follows this lifecycle:

1. Start Lightpanda daemon (CDP server)
2. Connect agent-browser via --cdp
3. Navigate, snapshot, interact
4. Stop daemon when done

Step 1 — Start Lightpanda

# Start Lightpanda CDP server on port 9222 (background)
lightpanda serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 9222 &
LIGHTPANDA_PID=$!

# Wait for CDP to be ready
sleep 1

Step 2 — Connect and Automate

# All agent-browser commands work via --cdp flag
agent-browser --cdp 9222 open https://example.com
agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -i
agent-browser --cdp 9222 fill @e1 "search query"
agent-browser --cdp 9222 click @e2
agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -i  # Re-snapshot after navigation

Step 3 — Cleanup

agent-browser --cdp 9222 close
kill $LIGHTPANDA_PID 2>/dev/null

---

Supported Commands

All commands below are invoked as `agent-browser --cdp <port> <command>`.

Navigation

agent-browser --cdp 9222 open <url>
agent-browser --cdp 9222 back
agent-browser --cdp 9222 forward
agent-browser --cdp 9222 reload
agent-browser --cdp 9222 close

Snapshot (DOM Analysis)

agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -i         # Interactive elements with refs
agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -i -C      # Include cursor-interactive elements
agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -s "#main"  # Scope to CSS selector
agent-browser --cdp 9222 snapshot -i --json   # JSON output for parsing

Interaction (use @refs from snapshot)

agent-browser --cdp 9222 click @e1
agent-browser --cdp 9222 dblclick @e1
agent-browser --cdp 9222 fill @e2 "text"
agent-browser --cdp 9222 type @e2 "text"
agent-browser --cdp 9222 press Enter
agent-browser --cdp 9222 select @e1 "option"
agent-browser --cdp 9222 check @e1
agent-browser --cdp 9222 hover @e1
agent-browser --cdp 9222 scroll down 500
agent-browser --cdp 9222 drag @e1 @e2
agent-browser --cdp 9222 upload @e1 file.pdf

Get Information

agent-browser --cdp 9222 get text @e1        # Element text
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get html @e1        # innerHTML
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get value @e1       # Input value
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get attr @e1 href   # Attribute
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get title           # Page title
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get url             # Current URL
agent-browser --cdp 9222 get count ".item"   # Count elements

Wait

agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait @e1                     # Wait for element
agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait 2000                    # Wait milliseconds
agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait --text "Success"        # Wait for text
agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait --url "**/dashboard"    # Wait for URL
agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait --load networkidle      # Wait for network idle
agent-browser --cdp 9222 wait --fn "window.ready"     # Wait for JS condition

Cookies and Storage

agent-browser --cdp 9222 cookies
agent-browser --cdp 9222 cookies set name value
agent-browser --cdp 9222 cookies clear
agent-browser --cdp 9222 storage local
agent-browser --cdp 9222 storage local set key value

Network Interception

agent-browser --cdp 9222 network route <url>              # Intercept
agent-browser --cdp 9222 network route <url> --abort      # Block
agent-browser --cdp 9222 network route <url> --body '{}'  # Mock response
agent-browser --cdp 9222 network requests                 # View tracked
agent-browser --cdp 9222 network requests --filter api    # Filter

JavaScript Execution

agent-browser --cdp 9222 eval "document.title"
agent-browser --cdp 9222 eval -b "<base64>"
cat script.js | agent-browser --cdp 9222 eval --stdin

Semantic Locators

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