PinchTab

PinchTab is an open-source, local-first browser automation tool built as a small Go binary (~16 MB) that exposes an HTTP API and CLI for AI agents to control Chrome. It supports both headless and headed Chrome profiles, persistent sessions, and multi-instance orchestration with strong isolation between parallel browser processes. Designed for token efficiency, PinchTab extracts page content at ~800 tokens per page — 5–13x cheaper than screenshot-based approaches — making it well-suited for agentic workflows where API cost matters.

• Token-efficient extraction — Use pinchtab text to extract page content at ~800 tokens instead of 10,000, dramatically reducing LLM API costs.
• Headless and headed Chrome — Run Chrome without a visible window for automation, or with a visible window for tasks requiring authenticated profiles.
• Persistent profiles — Create named browser profiles with saved cookies, history, and local storage so agents stay logged in across restarts.
• Multi-instance orchestration — Spin up multiple isolated Chrome processes in parallel via the HTTP API, each with its own profile.
• HTTP API and CLI — Control the browser via curl or the pinchtab CLI; the server runs as a local daemon on port 9867.
• MCP server support — Expose browser tools to AI agents via the Model Context Protocol for seamless agent integration.
• Self-contained binary — Single ~16 MB Go binary with no external runtime dependencies; install via shell script, Homebrew, npm, or Docker.
• ARM64 support — First-class Raspberry Pi support with automatic Chromium detection.
• Local-first security — Binds to 127.0.0.1 by default, no telemetry, no analytics, and no required outbound service dependency.
• Dashboard — Real-time web dashboard for monitoring and managing instances, profiles, and tabs.

To get started, install the binary with curl -fsSL https://pinchtab.com/install.sh | bash, then run pinchtab daemon install to start the background control plane. Point your agent or tool at http://localhost:9867 and use the CLI or HTTP API to navigate pages, extract content, and interact with the DOM.