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Show HN: KittyBrowser, I built a web browser in your terminal

github.com7 points6 comments
Screenshot of Show HN: KittyBrowser, I built a web browser in your terminal

KittyBrowser, or kb, is a Rust-built browser that runs inside a terminal pane by controlling headless Chrome and displaying its actual pixels through the kitty graphics protocol. Unlike text-based terminal browsers, it preserves a page’s layout, fonts, and images, while supporting mouse interaction, navigation, search, zoom, copying, and browser history. It is intended for developers who want to view a site beside their terminal work, particularly when building with coding agents. Users can install it with Cargo and launch a URL, search query, or local file; Chrome or a compatible browser and a graphics-protocol-capable terminal are required.

A major focus is letting agents and scripts inspect and operate the same browser window a person can watch. Commands can open pages, check console and network errors, click controls, resize the viewport, capture screenshots, read page text, inspect styles, and debug interactions; an optional MCP server exposes these tools to compatible agents. The project is at version 0.1 and is described as usable, though support is uneven: macOS is the main tested platform, Linux builds but is untested, and Windows requires WSL 2. It does not work in terminals lacking the graphics protocol or inside tmux or screen. Profiles and cookies are kept separately from everyday Chrome, while the local control socket lets programs running as the same user execute JavaScript in logged-in pages, a security consideration when enabling agent access.

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