OpenCLI

Turn websites, browser sessions, Electron apps, and local tools into deterministic interfaces for humans and AI agents.
Reuse your logged-in browser, automate live workflows, and crystallize repeated actions into reusable CLI commands.

OpenCLI gives you one surface for three different kinds of automation:

• Use built-in adapters for sites like Bilibili, Zhihu, Xiaohongshu, Reddit, HackerNews, Twitter/X, and many more.
• Let AI Agents operate any website — install the opencli-adapter-author skill in your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), and it can navigate, click, type, extract, and inspect any page through your logged-in browser via opencli browser primitives.
• Write new adapters end-to-end with opencli browser + the opencli-adapter-author skill, which guides from first recon through field decoding, code, and opencli browser verify.

It also works as a CLI hub for local tools such as gh, docker, and other binaries you register yourself, plus desktop app adapters for Electron apps like Cursor, Codex, Antigravity, ChatGPT, and Notion.

Highlights

• Desktop App Control — Drive Electron apps (Cursor, Codex, ChatGPT, Notion, etc.) directly from the terminal via CDP.
• Browser Automation for AI Agents — Install the opencli-adapter-author skill, and your AI agent can operate any website: navigate, click, type, extract, screenshot — all through your logged-in Chrome session.
• Website → CLI — Turn any website into a deterministic CLI: 90+ pre-built adapters, or write your own with the opencli-adapter-author skill + opencli browser verify.
• Account-safe — Reuses Chrome/Chromium logged-in state; your credentials never leave the browser.
• AI Agent ready — One skill takes you from site recon through API discovery, field decoding, adapter writing, and verification.
• CLI Hub — Discover, auto-install, and passthrough commands to any external CLI (gh, docker, obsidian, etc).
• Zero LLM cost — No tokens consumed at runtime. Run 10,000 times and pay nothing.
• Deterministic — Same command, same output schema, every time. Pipeable, scriptable, CI-friendly.

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Quick Start

1. Install OpenCLI

npm install -g @jackwener/opencli

2. Install the Browser Bridge Extension

OpenCLI connects to Chrome/Chromium through a lightweight Browser Bridge extension plus a small local daemon. The daemon auto-starts when needed.

1. Download the latest opencli-extension-v{version}.zip from the GitHub Releases page.
2. Unzip it, open chrome://extensions, and enable Developer mode.
3. Click Load unpacked and select the unzipped folder.

3. Verify the setup

opencli doctor

4. Run your first commands

opencli list
opencli hackernews top --limit 5
opencli bilibili hot --limit 5

For Humans

Use OpenCLI directly when you want a reliable command instead of a live browser session:

• opencli list shows every registered command.
• opencli <site> <command> runs a built-in or generated adapter.
• opencli register mycli exposes a local CLI through the same discovery surface.
• opencli doctor helps diagnose browser connectivity.

For AI Agents

OpenCLI's browser commands are designed to be used by AI Agents — not run manually. Install skills into your AI agent (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), and the agent operates websites on your behalf using your logged-in Chrome session.

Install skills

npx skills add jackwener/opencli

Or install only what you need:

npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-adapter-author
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-autofix
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-browser
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-usage
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill smart-search

Which skill to use

Skill	When to use	Example prompt to your AI agent
opencli-adapter-author	Operate a site in real time, or write a reusable adapter for a new site	"Help me check my Xiaohongshu notifications" / "Write an adapter for douyin trending" / "Make a command that grabs the top posts from this page"
opencli-autofix	Repair a broken adapter when a built-in command fails	"opencli zhihu hot is returning empty — fix it"
opencli-browser	Browser automation reference for AI agents	"Use browser commands to scrape this page"
opencli-usage	Quick reference for all OpenCLI commands and sites	"What commands does OpenCLI have for Twitter?"
smart-search	Search across existing OpenCLI capabilities	"Find me a Bilibili trending adapter"

How it works

Once opencli-adapter-author is installed, your AI agent can:

1. Navigate to any URL using your logged-in browser
2. Read page content via structured DOM snapshots (not screenshots)
3. Interact — click buttons, fill forms, select options, press keys
4. Extract data from the page or intercept network API responses
5. Wait for elements, text, or page transitions

The agent handles all the opencli browser commands internally — you just describe what you want done in natural language.

Skill references:

• skills/opencli-adapter-author/SKILL.md — browser operation + adapter authoring, end-to-end
• skills/opencli-autofix/SKILL.md — repair broken adapters
• skills/opencli-browser/SKILL.md — browser automation reference
• skills/opencli-usage/SKILL.md — command and site reference
• skills/smart-search/SKILL.md — capability search

Available browser commands include open, state, click, type, select, keys, wait, get, find, extract, frames, screenshot, scroll, back, eval, network, tab list, tab new, tab select, tab close, init, verify, and close.

opencli browser open <url> and opencli browser tab new [url] both return a target ID. Use opencli browser tab list to inspect the target IDs of tabs that already exist, then pass --tab <targetId> to route a command to a specific tab. tab new creates a new tab without changing the default browser target; only tab select <targetId> promotes that tab to the default target for later untargeted opencli browser ... commands.

Core Concepts

browser: AI Agent browser control

opencli browser commands are the low-level primitives that AI Agents use to operate websites. You don't run these manually — instead, install the opencli-adapter-author skill into your AI agent, describe what you want in natural language, and the agent handles the browser operations.

For example, tell your agent: "Help me check my Xiaohongshu notifications" — the agent will use opencli browser open, state, click, etc. under the hood.

Built-in adapters: stable commands

Use site-specific commands such as opencli hackernews top or opencli reddit hot when the capability already exists. These are deterministic and work without browser — ideal for both humans and AI agents.

Writing a new adapter

When the site you need is not yet covered, use the opencli-adapter-author skill. It takes the agent end-to-end:

1. Recon the site and classify its pattern (SPA / SSR / JSONP / Token / Streaming).
2. Discover the right endpoint — network inspection, initial state, bundle search, token trace, or interceptor fallback.
3. Decide the auth strategy — PUBLIC / COOKIE / HEADER / INTERCEPT.
4. Decode response fields and design output columns.
5. opencli browser init <site>/<name> → write adapter → opencli browser verify <site>/<name>.
6. Persist site knowledge to ~/.opencli/sites/<site>/ so the next adapter for the same site is faster.

CLI Hub and desktop adapters

OpenCLI is not only for websites. It can also:

• expose local binaries like gh, docker, obsidian, or custom tools through opencli <tool> ...
• control Electron desktop apps through dedicated adapters and CDP-backed integrations

Prerequisites

• Node.js: >= 21.0.0 (or Bun >= 1.0)
• Chrome or Chromium running and logged into the target site for browser-backed commands

Important: Browser-backed commands reuse your Chrome/Chromium login session. If you get empty data or permission-like failures, first confirm the site is already open and authenticated in Chrome/Chromium.

Configuration

Variable	Default	Description
OPENCLI_DAEMON_PORT	19825	HTTP port for the daemon-extension bridge
OPENCLI_WINDOW_FOCUSED	false	Set to 1 to open automation windows in the foreground (useful for debugging). The --focus flag sets this.
OPENCLI_LIVE	false	Set to 1 to keep the automation window open after an adapter command finishes (useful for inspection). The --live flag sets this.
OPENCLI_BROWSER_CONNECT_TIMEOUT	30	Seconds to wait for browser connection
OPENCLI_BROWSER_COMMAND_TIMEOUT	60	Seconds to wait for a single browser command
OPENCLI_CDP_ENDPOINT	—	Chrome DevTools Protocol endpoint for remote browser or Electron apps
OPENCLI_CDP_TARGET	—	Filter CDP targets by URL substring (e.g. detail.1688.com)
OPENCLI_VERBOSE	false	Enable verbose logging (-v flag also works)
OPENCLI_DIAGNOSTIC	false	Set to 1 to capture structured diagnostic context on failures
DEBUG_SNAPSHOT	—	Set to 1 for DOM snapshot debug output

--focus works for both opencli browser * and browser-backed adapter commands. --live is mainly for adapter commands: browser subcommands already keep the automation window open until you run opencli browser close or the idle timeout expires.

Update

npm install -g @jackwener/opencli@latest

# If you use the packaged OpenCLI skills, refresh them too
npx skills add jackwener/opencli

Or refresh only the skills you actually use:

npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-adapter-author
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-autofix
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-browser
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill opencli-usage
npx skills add jackwener/opencli --skill smart-search

For Developers

Install from source:

git clone [email protected]:jackwener/opencli.git
cd opencli
npm install
npm run build
npm link

To load the source Browser Bridge extension:

1. Open chrome://extensions and enable Developer mode.
2. Click Load unpacked and select this repository's extension/ directory.

Built-in Commands

Site	Commands
xiaohongshu	search note comments feed user download publish notifications creator-notes creator-notes-summary creator-note-detail creator-profile creator-stats
bilibili	hot search history feed ranking download comments dynamic favorite following me subtitle video user-videos
tieba	hot posts search read
hupu	hot search detail mentions reply like unlike
twitter	trending search timeline tweets lists list-tweets list-add list-remove bookmarks post download profile article like likes notifications reply reply-dm thread follow unfollow followers following block unblock bookmark unbookmark delete hide-reply accept
reddit	hot frontpage popular search subreddit read user user-posts user-comments upvote upvoted save saved comment subscribe
zhihu	hot search question download follow like favorite comment answer
amazon	bestsellers search product offer discussion movers-shakers new-releases rankings
1688	search item assets download store
gitee	trending search user
gemini	new ask image deep-research deep-research-result
yuanbao	new ask
notebooklm	status list open current get history summary note-list notes-get source-list source-get source-fulltext source-guide
spotify	auth status play pause next prev volume search queue shuffle repeat
xianyu	search item chat
xiaoe	courses detail catalog play-url content
quark	ls mkdir mv rename rm save share-tree
uiverse	code preview
baidu-scholar	search
google-scholar	search
gov-law	search recent
gov-policy	search recent
nowcoder	hot trending topics recommend creators companies jobs search suggest experience referral salary papers practice notifications detail
wanfang	search
hackernews	top new best ask show jobs search user
xiaoyuzhou	auth* podcast* podcast-episodes* episode* download* transcript*

90+ adapters in total — → see all supported sites & commands

* opencli xiaoyuzhou podcast, podcast-episodes, episode, download, and transcript require local Xiaoyuzhou credentials in ~/.opencli/xiaoyuzhou.json.

CLI Hub

OpenCLI acts as a universal hub for your existing command-line tools — unified discovery, pure passthrough execution, and auto-install (if a tool isn't installed, OpenCLI runs brew install <tool> automatically before re-running the command).

External CLI	Description	Example
gh	GitHub CLI	opencli gh pr list --limit 5
obsidian	Obsidian vault management	opencli obsidian search query="AI"
docker	Docker	opencli docker ps
lark-cli	Lark/Feishu — messages, docs, calendar, tasks, 200+ commands	opencli lark-cli calendar +agenda
dws	DingTalk — cross-platform CLI for DingTalk's full suite, designed for humans and AI agents	opencli dws msg send --to user "hello"
wecom-cli	WeCom/企业微信 — CLI for WeCom open platform, for humans and AI agents	opencli wecom-cli msg send --to user "hello"
vercel	Vercel — deploy projects, manage domains, env vars, logs	opencli vercel deploy --prod

Register your own — add any local CLI so AI agents can discover it via opencli list:

opencli register mycli

Desktop App Adapters

Control Electron desktop apps directly from the terminal. Each adapter has its own detailed documentation:

App	Description	Doc
Cursor	Control Cursor IDE — Composer, chat, code extraction	Doc
Codex	Drive OpenAI Codex CLI agent headlessly	Doc
Antigravity	Control Antigravity Ultra from terminal	Doc
ChatGPT App	Automate ChatGPT macOS desktop app	Doc
ChatWise	Multi-LLM client (GPT-4, Claude, Gemini)	Doc
Notion	Search, read, write Notion pages	Doc
Discord	Discord Desktop — messages, channels, servers	Doc
Doubao	Control Doubao AI desktop app via CDP	Doc

To add a new Electron app, start with docs/guide/electron-app-cli.md.

Download Support

OpenCLI supports downloading images, videos, and articles from supported platforms.

Platform	Content Types	Notes
xiaohongshu	Images, Videos	Downloads all media from a note
bilibili	Videos	Requires yt-dlp installed
twitter	Images, Videos	From user media tab or single tweet
douban	Images	Poster / still image lists
pixiv	Images	Original-quality illustrations, multi-page
1688	Images, Videos	Downloads page-visible product media from item pages
xiaoyuzhou	Audio, Transcript	Downloads episode audio and transcript JSON/text with local credentials
zhihu	Articles (Markdown)	Exports with optional image download
weixin	Articles (Markdown)	WeChat Official Account articles

For video downloads, install yt-dlp first: brew install yt-dlp

opencli xiaohongshu download "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/search_result/<id>?xsec_token=..." --output ./xhs
opencli xiaohongshu download "https://xhslink.com/..." --output ./xhs
opencli bilibili download BV1xxx --output ./bilibili
opencli twitter download elonmusk --limit 20 --output ./twitter
opencli 1688 download 841141931191 --output ./1688-downloads
opencli xiaoyuzhou download 69b3b675772ac2295bfc01d0 --output ./xiaoyuzhou
opencli xiaoyuzhou transcript 69dd0c98e2c8be31551f6a33 --output ./xiaoyuzhou-transcripts

opencli xiaoyuzhou download and transcript require local Xiaoyuzhou credentials in ~/.opencli/xiaoyuzhou.json.

Output Formats

All built-in commands support --format / -f with table (default), json, yaml, md, and csv.

opencli bilibili hot -f json    # Pipe to jq or LLMs
opencli bilibili hot -f csv     # Spreadsheet-friendly
opencli bilibili hot -v         # Verbose: show pipeline debug steps

Exit Codes

opencli follows Unix sysexits.h conventions so it integrates naturally with shell pipelines and CI scripts:

Code	Meaning	When
0	Success	Command completed normally
1	Generic error	Unexpected / unclassified failure
2	Usage error	Bad arguments or unknown command
66	Empty result	No data returned (EX_NOINPUT)
69	Service unavailable	Browser Bridge not connected (EX_UNAVAILABLE)
75	Temporary failure	Command timed out — retry (EX_TEMPFAIL)
77	Auth required	Not logged in to target site (EX_NOPERM)
78	Config error	Missing credentials or bad config (EX_CONFIG)
130	Interrupted	Ctrl-C / SIGINT

opencli spotify status || echo "exit $?"   # 69 if browser not running
opencli gh issue list 2>/dev/null
[ $? -eq 77 ] && opencli gh auth login      # auto-auth if not logged in

Plugins

Extend OpenCLI with community-contributed adapters:

opencli plugin install github:user/opencli-plugin-my-tool
opencli plugin list
opencli plugin update --all
opencli plugin uninstall my-tool

Plugin	Type	Description
opencli-plugin-github-trending	JS	GitHub Trending repositories
opencli-plugin-hot-digest	JS	Multi-platform trending aggregator
opencli-plugin-juejin	JS	稀土掘金 (Juejin) hot articles
opencli-plugin-vk	JS	VK (VKontakte) wall, feed, and search

See Plugins Guide for creating your own plugin.

For AI Agents (Developer Guide)

Before writing any adapter code, read the opencli-adapter-author skill. It takes you end-to-end:

• Recon the site and pick a pattern (SPA / SSR / JSONP / Token / Streaming).
• Discover the right endpoint via opencli browser network, eval, or the interceptor fallback.
• Decide auth strategy (PUBLIC / COOKIE / HEADER / INTERCEPT).
• Decode response fields, design columns, scaffold with opencli browser init.
• Verify with opencli browser verify <site>/<name> before shipping.

Adapters you write outside the repo live at ~/.opencli/clis/<site>/<name>.js. Site knowledge (endpoints, field maps, fixtures) accumulates in ~/.opencli/sites/<site>/ so the next adapter for the same site starts from context instead of zero.

Testing

See TESTING.md for how to run and write tests.

Troubleshooting

• "Extension not connected" — Ensure the Browser Bridge extension is installed and enabled in chrome://extensions in Chrome or Chromium.
• "attach failed: Cannot access a chrome-extension:// URL" — Another extension may be interfering. Try disabling other extensions temporarily.
• Empty data or 'Unauthorized' error — Your Chrome/Chromium login session may have expired. Navigate to the target site and log in again.
• Node API errors — Ensure Node.js >= 21. Some features require node:util styleText (stable in Node 21+).
• Daemon issues — Check status: curl localhost:19825/status · View logs: curl localhost:19825/logs

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License

Apache-2.0