Guide: Adding Browser-Use Tools to Your Agent

Add individual browser actions to your existing agent's tool set. Your agent stays in control and drives the browser action by action.

Table of Contents

• When to Use This Pattern
• Pick Your Integration
• Shell Command Agents (CLI)
• TypeScript/JS: CDP + Playwright
• MCP-Native Agents
• Existing Playwright/Puppeteer/Selenium
• Decision Summary

When to Use This Pattern

Your agent already has tools (search, code execution, file I/O, etc.) and its own reasoning loop. You want to add browser capabilities — navigate, click, type, extract — as tools your agent can call. You don't want to hand off to browser-use's Agent; your agent makes the decisions.

Use tools integration when:

• Your agent needs action-by-action browser control
• You want browser actions alongside your other tools
• Your agent's reasoning should drive what gets clicked/typed

Use subagent instead when:

• You want to delegate an entire web task as a black box
• You don't need control over individual browser actions

Pick Your Integration

Shell Command Agents (CLI)

For: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cline, Windsurf, Cursor background agents, Hermes, OpenClaw — any coding agent running in a VM/container with terminal access.

Setup: Install the CLI and load the browser-use SKILL.md into the agent's context. CLI 3.0 runs Python from stdin. Browser helpers are already imported, and the browser stays alive between calls.

uv pip install 'browser-use[cli]'

For Browser Use Cloud, authenticate once and start a named remote browser:

browser-use auth login

browser-use <<'PY'
start_remote_daemon("agent-1")
PY

Use the same BU_NAME for every later call so the agent stays on that cloud browser:

# 1. Navigate and observe
BU_NAME=agent-1 browser-use <<'PY'
new_tab("https://html.duckduckgo.com/html/")
wait_for_load()
print(page_info())
PY

# 2. Interact, then verify the result
BU_NAME=agent-1 browser-use <<'PY'
fill_input('input[name="q"]', "search query")
press_key("ENTER")
wait_for_load()
print(js("document.title"))
print(capture_screenshot())
PY

# 3. Stop the cloud browser when the job is done
browser-use <<'PY'
stop_remote_daemon("agent-1")
PY

Key details:

• CLI 3.0 removed the old open, state, click, eval, --json, --headed, and --profile command surface.
• The agent writes Python with helpers such as new_tab, page_info, fill_input, click_at_xy, js, and cdp.
• The background daemon keeps the browser alive between calls. Printed Python values are the tool output.
• BU_NAME selects the named cloud browser. Without it, the CLI uses the default local browser.
• The first navigation is new_tab(url). Use goto_url(url) only after a real tab exists.
• Remote browsers keep billing until they stop or time out. Always call stop_remote_daemon(name) after the job.

TypeScript/JS: CDP + Playwright

For: TypeScript agents that need browser primitives. Connect Playwright to a cloud stealth browser.

import { chromium } from "playwright";

// Connect to cloud stealth browser (no local Chrome needed)
const browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(
  "wss://connect.browser-use.com?apiKey=YOUR_KEY&proxyCountryCode=us"
);
const page = browser.contexts()[0].pages()[0];

// Your agent calls these as tools:
await page.goto("https://example.com");
await page.fill("#search", "query");
await page.click("button[type=submit]");
const text = await page.textContent(".result");
const screenshot = await page.screenshot();

await browser.close();
// Browser auto-stops when WebSocket disconnects

For local browser (no cloud):

import { chromium } from "playwright";

const browser = await chromium.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
// ... same Playwright API
await browser.close();

MCP-Native Agents

For: Claude Desktop, Cursor with MCP, any MCP client that discovers tools via protocol.

Start the local MCP server:

uvx --from 'browser-use[cli]' browser-use --mcp

The agent gets individual browser tools:

• browser_navigate(url) — go to URL
• browser_click(index) — click element by index
• browser_type(index, text) — type into element
• browser_get_state(include_screenshot) — get page state with element indices
• browser_extract_content(query) — LLM-powered extraction
• browser_screenshot(full_page) — capture page
• browser_scroll(direction) — scroll up/down
• browser_go_back() — browser back
• browser_list_tabs(), browser_switch_tab(id), browser_close_tab(id) — tab management

The agent calls these one at a time, using its own reasoning to decide the next action.

Existing Playwright/Puppeteer/Selenium

For: You already have browser automation scripts and want to run them on stealth infrastructure (anti-fingerprinting, CAPTCHA handling, residential proxies).

Zero code changes — just change the connection URL:

Playwright

# Before: local browser
browser = await playwright.chromium.launch()

# After: cloud stealth browser
browser = await playwright.chromium.connect_over_cdp(
    "wss://connect.browser-use.com?apiKey=KEY&proxyCountryCode=us"
)
# Rest of your code stays exactly the same

Puppeteer

// Before
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();

// After
const browser = await puppeteer.connect({
  browserWSEndpoint: "wss://connect.browser-use.com?apiKey=KEY&proxyCountryCode=us"
});

Browser auto-starts on connect, auto-stops on disconnect. Pricing: $0.05/hour.

Decision Summary

Note: For Python agents that want fine-grained browser control via direct imports (Actor API, Tools Registry, MCPClient), see the open-source skill's reference docs.