/pinchtab-mcp

name: pinchtab-mcp
description: "Use this skill when a task requires browser automation through PinchTab's MCP server connected to a remote browser instance. Covers navigation, element interaction, data extraction, form filling, multi-step flows, and session management via MCP tools."
metadata:
  mcp:
    servers:
      - name: pinchtab
        config:
          command: pinchtab
          args: ["mcp"]

Browser Automation via PinchTab MCP

Use MCP tools to control a browser through the PinchTab HTTP API. The MCP server defaults to `http://127.0.0.1:9867`; for remote or containerized PinchTab instances, override with the `PINCHTAB_SERVER` env var (e.g. `PINCHTAB_SERVER=http://pinchtab:9867`).

Core Workflow

1. **Navigate**: `pinchtab_navigate(url="https://example.com")` — auto-creates a session and tab. 2. **Observe**: `pinchtab_snapshot(interactive=true, compact=true)` — returns numbered refs like `e5`, `e12`. 3. **Interact**: `pinchtab_click(selector="e5")` — use refs from the snapshot. 4. **Verify**: `pinchtab_get_text()` or re-snapshot to confirm the action succeeded.

**Critical rule**: An element ref (`e5`, `e12`) denotes a DOM node, so the same node keeps its ref across `interactive` vs full, a `selector` scope and a `depth` limit — a filtered view is therefore sparse (`e0, e1, e6`), never assume refs are contiguous. What a ref does NOT survive is navigation to a new document: refs expire on page load, so always re-call `pinchtab_snapshot` afterwards. A ref that can no longer resolve to its node is refused with `vocab_superseded` (or `ref not found`), never acted on positionally — the tools carry each snapshot's vocabulary token forward so a filter-only re-read keeps a ref valid while a new document supersedes it.

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Tool Selection Guide

Choose the cheapest tool that satisfies your goal:

| Goal | Tool | Token Cost | |------|------|------------| | Check a specific value | `pinchtab_eval(expression="document.title")` | Lowest | | Find a specific element | `pinchtab_find(query="login button")` | Low | | Read page text only | `pinchtab_get_text()` | Low | | Read a whole site to markdown | `pinchtab_scrape(url=..., preview=true)` then expand | Varies | | Find interactive elements | `pinchtab_snapshot(interactive=true, compact=true)` | Medium | | Full page structure | `pinchtab_snapshot()` | Medium-High | | Visual verification | `pinchtab_screenshot()` | Highest |

**Default observation**: `pinchtab_snapshot(interactive=true, compact=true)` — returns only interactive elements in compact format. Use this as your starting point.

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Navigation

pinchtab_navigate(url="https://example.com")

• Always include `http://` or `https://` scheme.
• Returns the tab ID and a basic confirmation.
• Follow with `pinchtab_snapshot()` to get element refs.
• For read-heavy tasks, consider blocking images (set via config on the server).

**After navigation**: Always call `pinchtab_snapshot()` before interacting. The page may have redirects, modals, or cookie banners.

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Site scrape

To read a **whole site** (not one page) into markdown, use `pinchtab_scrape` — it crawls over HTTP first and browser-renders only the pages that need it (thin, blocked, or JS-only).

pinchtab_scrape(url="https://example.com", preview=true)

• **Large sites**: call with `preview=true` first for a token-cheap outline (per-page titles, sizes, snippets, and which pages need the browser — no full bodies). Full reports can be large; don't scrape everything blind.
• **Drill down**: expand the pages you picked from the preview with `only` (comma-separated URLs): `pinchtab_scrape(url="https://example.com", only="https://example.com/a, https://example.com/b")`.
• `noBrowser=true` for an HTTP-only crawl; `enrichAll=true` to browser-render every page. Multi-page crawls run for minutes.

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Observation

Snapshot (primary)

pinchtab_snapshot(interactive=true, compact=true)

Returns an accessibility tree, one element per line as `ref:role "name"`:

e0:link "About"
e2:button "Sign in"
e5:textbox "Search"

**Key rules**:

• Each line's leading `eN` is the ref to pass to action tools.
• Refs are the fastest way to target elements.
• Use `diff=true` after an interaction to see only changed elements (saves tokens).
• Use `selector` to scope the snapshot to a specific section.

Text extraction

pinchtab_get_text()

Use when you only need to read content (articles, dashboards, results). Cheaper than snapshot when you won't interact with elements.

Find elements

pinchtab_find(query="submit button")

Semantic search for elements without a full snapshot. Returns matching refs. Great for known targets.

Screenshots

pinchtab_screenshot()

Returns an MCP image (image/jpeg by default) — clients render it inline. The text block is always the JSON envelope `{"format": "jpeg"|"png", "annotations": [...]}`; `annotations` is `[]` by default and becomes `[{ref, role, name, tag, box: {x, y, w, h}}, ...]` with `annotate=true` so refs in the picture map back to the same selectors used by `pinchtab_click` etc. Screenshots are heavy (500KB–2MB per image), so use sparingly.

• Add `quality=60` to reduce file size for JPEG screenshots.
• Use `selector="e5"` to capture a specific element instead of the full page.
• Use `annotate=true` to overlay numbered ref boxes and get the matching annotations list.
• Use `beyondViewport=true` to capture the entire scrollable document (annotation box coords become document-relative). Ignored when `selector` is set.

**When to use screenshots**:

• Visual layout verification (CSS issues, overlapping elements)
• CAPTCHA detection (report to user)
• Debugging when snapshot/text don't reveal the issue
• Complex forms where visual confirmation is needed

**When NOT to use screenshots**:

• Reading text content — use `pinchtab_get_text()` instead
• Finding interactive elements — use `pinchtab_snapshot()` instead
• Routine verificatio