firecrawl-browser

What this skill does

# firecrawl browser

Cloud Chromium sessions in Firecrawl's remote sandboxed environment. Interact with pages that require clicks, form fills, pagination, or login.

## When to use

- Content requires interaction: clicks, form fills, pagination, login
- `scrape` failed because content is behind JavaScript interaction
- You need to navigate a multi-step flow
- Last resort in the [workflow escalation pattern](firecrawl-cli): search → scrape → map → crawl → **browser**
- **Never use browser for web searches** — use `search` instead

## Quick start

```bash
# Typical browser workflow
firecrawl browser "open <url>"
firecrawl browser "snapshot -i"                       # see interactive elements with @ref IDs
firecrawl browser "click @e5"                         # interact with elements
firecrawl browser "fill @e3 'search query'"           # fill form fields
firecrawl browser "scrape" -o .firecrawl/page.md      # extract content
firecrawl browser close
```

Shorthand auto-launches a session if none exists — no setup required.

## Commands

| Command              | Description                              |
| -------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| `open <url>`         | Navigate to a URL                        |
| `snapshot -i`        | Get interactive elements with `@ref` IDs |
| `screenshot`         | Capture a PNG screenshot                 |
| `click <@ref>`       | Click an element by ref                  |
| `type <@ref> <text>` | Type into an element                     |
| `fill <@ref> <text>` | Fill a form field (clears first)         |
| `scrape`             | Extract page content as markdown         |
| `scroll <direction>` | Scroll up/down/left/right                |
| `wait <seconds>`     | Wait for a duration                      |
| `eval <js>`          | Evaluate JavaScript on the page          |

Session management: `launch-session --ttl 600`, `list`, `close`

## Options

| Option                       | Description                                        |
| ---------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- |
| `--ttl <seconds>`            | Session time-to-live                               |
| `--ttl-inactivity <seconds>` | Inactivity timeout                                 |
| `--session <id>`             | Use a specific session ID                          |
| `--profile <name>`           | Use a named profile (persists state)               |
| `--no-save-changes`          | Read-only reconnect (don't write to session state) |
| `-o, --output <path>`        | Output file path                                   |

## Profiles

Profiles survive close and can be reconnected by name. Use them for login-then-work flows:

```bash
# Session 1: Login and save state
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app
firecrawl browser "open https://app.example.com/login"
firecrawl browser "snapshot -i"
firecrawl browser "fill @e3 '[email protected]'"
firecrawl browser "click @e7"
firecrawl browser "wait 2"
firecrawl browser close

# Session 2: Come back authenticated
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app
firecrawl browser "open https://app.example.com/dashboard"
firecrawl browser "scrape" -o .firecrawl/dashboard.md
firecrawl browser close
```

Read-only reconnect (no writes to session state):

```bash
firecrawl browser launch-session --profile my-app --no-save-changes
```

Shorthand with profile:

```bash
firecrawl browser --profile my-app "open https://example.com"
```

## Tips

- If you get forbidden errors, the session may have expired — create a new one.
- For parallel browser work, launch separate sessions and operate them via `--session <id>`.
- Always `close` sessions when done to free resources.

## See also

- [firecrawl-scrape](../firecrawl-scrape/SKILL.md) — try scrape first, escalate to browser only when needed
- [firecrawl-search](../firecrawl-search/SKILL.md) — for web searches (never use browser for searching)
- [firecrawl-agent](../firecrawl-agent/SKILL.md) — AI-powered extraction (less manual control)