zendriver-mcp

Undetectable browser automation for LLM agents, spoken over MCP.

zendriver-mcp is an MCP server that gives your coding agent (Claude, Cursor, Gemini, Copilot) a real Chrome browser it can actually use on the real web - behind Cloudflare, behind login walls, on pages that detect and block WebDriver.

It's built on Zendriver, which speaks the Chrome DevTools Protocol directly instead of going through WebDriver. That means no navigator.webdriver flag, no headless telltales, and a fingerprint that looks like an ordinary Chrome install.

On top of that foundation, zendriver-mcp layers everything an agent needs to get work done: a token-efficient DOM walker, an accessibility tree with stable uids, performance traces, Lighthouse audits, heap snapshots, human-like input, device emulation, cookie round-tripping, and more - 96 tools across 22 modules.

Highlights

• Undetectable by design. Zendriver keeps a clean fingerprint; we ship a Cloudflare Turnstile solver, identity overrides (UA, locale, timezone, geolocation), and bezier-curve mouse movement plus gaussian typing timing.
• Token-efficient DOM. Two ways to see the page - the upstream DOM walker that reports 96% fewer tokens than raw HTML, and a CDP accessibility tree keyed by stable uids that survive re-renders.
• Full DevTools parity. Performance traces that load in Chrome DevTools, heap snapshots in the standard .heapsnapshot format, Lighthouse audits via the Lighthouse CLI reusing the same browser.
• Session round-tripping. Export all cookies (including HTTP-only ones) to JSON, re-import on the next session. Log in once, reuse everywhere.
• Emulation. iPhone 15 Pro, Pixel 8, iPad Pro, and desktop presets; CPU throttling; Slow 3G / Fast 3G / 4G / offline network profiles; force prefers-color-scheme.
• Screencasts. Write frames to disk as JPEG or PNG at configurable FPS.

Tool catalogue

Module	Tools
browser	start, stop, status
navigation	navigate, back, forward, reload, page info
tabs	new / list / switch / close
elements	click, type, clear, focus, select, upload
query	find element(s), text, attributes, buttons, inputs
content	HTML, text, interaction tree, scroll
storage	cookies (document.cookie), localStorage
logging	network + console logs, wait-for-request
forms	fill form, submit, key press, mouse click
utils	screenshot, execute JS, wait, security audit
stealth	Cloudflare bypass, UA / locale / timezone / geolocation overrides
humanlike	human_click, human_type, estimated_typing_duration
emulation	viewport, device presets, CPU + network throttle, media
devtools	start/stop trace, take heap snapshot
lighthouse	run audit, check CLI availability
screencast	start / stop (writes frame directory)
accessibility	AX snapshot with stable uids, click_by_uid, describe_uid
cookies	export / import / list / clear (CDP-level, all origins)
network_control	block URLs, extra headers, bypass service worker
permissions	grant / reset, list names
proxy	configure / clear (restarts browser with proxy args)
interception	mock_response, fail_requests, list, stop
screencast	+ export_screencast_mp4, check_ffmpeg_available

Full signatures live in the docstrings of src/tools/*.py and are auto-listed by the MCP handshake.

Install

Published on PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/zendriver-mcp/.

Requires Python 3.10+ and a Chrome / Chromium install.

# Zero-setup, re-resolves on every run - great for Claude Desktop configs
uvx zendriver-mcp

# Or install once, invoke many
uv tool install zendriver-mcp
pipx install zendriver-mcp
pip install zendriver-mcp

Use with Claude Desktop / Claude Code

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zendriver": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["zendriver-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

No clone, no --directory, no absolute path. If you prefer a permanent install instead, swap "command": "uvx" for "command": "zendriver-mcp" after running uv tool install zendriver-mcp.

Development checkout

Working on zendriver-mcp itself? Clone + uv sync, then point your MCP client at the checkout:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "zendriver": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "/absolute/path/to/zendriver-mcp", "run", "zendriver-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Optional flags on the CLI:

• --browser-path /path/to/chrome - point at a specific Chrome binary
• --transport stdio - only stdio for now; SSE/HTTP arrive when upstream mcp ships stable support

The 30-second tour

# Ask the browser to start, log in once, save the session.
await start_browser()
await navigate("https://example.com/login")
await fill_form({"#email": "me@me.com", "#pw": "..."})
await export_cookies("~/sessions/example.json")

# Next run: skip the login entirely.
await start_browser()
await import_cookies("~/sessions/example.json")
await navigate("https://example.com/dashboard")

# Get an accessibility snapshot, click by stable uid.
snap = await get_accessibility_snapshot()
await click_by_uid("ax_1b2c3d4e")

# Record a performance trace while you click around.
await start_trace()
await human_click(selector="#buy-now")
await stop_trace("/tmp/buy-flow.json")   # loads in Chrome DevTools

# Run Lighthouse against the current browser.
await run_lighthouse("https://example.com", form_factor="mobile")

Token-optimised DOM walker

The interaction tree emits compact rows like {"id": 1, "t": "btn", "l": "Search", "r": "hdr"}:

• Compact keys: t (type), l (label), r (region)
• Smart labels: inferred from aria-label, aria-labelledby, associated <label>, placeholder, text, title, alt
• Noise filtering: SVG internals, nested interactive children skipped
• Region tagging: hdr, nav, main, side, ftr, dlg
• Type compression: button -> btn, checkbox -> chk, etc.

Reported reduction on perplexity.ai: ~96% fewer tokens than raw HTML (~11k -> ~400).

For flows that span multiple actions, prefer get_accessibility_snapshot + click_by_uid - the uids stay valid as long as the underlying backend node survives, even across re-renders.

Development

uv sync
uv run ruff check .
uv run ruff format --check .
uv run mypy src
uv run pytest

CI runs the same four on every push and PR.

Roadmap

Everything on the original roadmap shipped in the 0.2 / 0.3 releases:

• Stealth: Cloudflare solver, UA / locale / timezone / geolocation
• Human-like input: bezier mouse paths, gaussian keystroke timing
• DevTools parity: traces, heap snapshots, Lighthouse
• Screencast + mp4 export via ffmpeg
• Accessibility tree with stable uids
• Cookie import/export, blocking, extra headers, permissions
• Request interception + response mocking (Fetch.enable)
• Proxy configuration (restart with --proxy-server)
• ToolResponse envelope adopted in rich-output tools
• PyPI publish workflow (Trusted Publishing)

Documentation site: https://bituq.github.io/zendriver-mcp/

What's next is driven by actual usage. Ideas on deck:

• Per-request proxy routing via Fetch interception
• Binary body support in mock_response
• Fetch.enable with patterns (faster than our "match all then filter")

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Acknowledgements

• Zendriver does the heavy lifting underneath.
• The token-optimised DOM walker and the original 49-tool foundation come from ShubhamChoulkar/Zendriver-MCP. This project started as a fork and has since grown its own identity and feature set.