Browser automation from the Mac terminal

Yab from the terminal

yab “…” hands a task to an agent in Yab, and agents use Yab’s tools over MCP.

Connecting an agent puts the yab command on your Mac. Without an agent, Install in Settings › Developers does, and adds it to your PATH.

yab "find the cheapest flight to lisbon on may 12"

An agent does it in Yab and the terminal shows each step, then the answer. If it needs you for a sign-in or a yes, it asks in Yab. yab https://… opens a page in front of you.

Run on Codex or Claude Code--cli codex

Choose the model and effort-m opus --effort high

Let it use your Mac too--access full

List, resume or stop tasksyab session list resume stop

Change a running task’s course, or give it what’s nextyab session steer queue

Tasks on a scheduleyab every

What agents know about youyab memory

What agents know about sitesyab skills

How to use Yab, written for an agentyab guide yab guide mcp

Set up Claude Code and Codex, or take it backyab setup yab remove

Is Yab running? Quit it (--force stops tasks at work)yab status yab quit

Keep Yab open for agents, however long nothing comesyab serve

Bring in another browser’s sign-insyab import chrome

Yab closed#

Yab doesn’t need to be open. A task or an agent’s first call wakes it hidden, with no window and no Dock icon; a mark in the menu bar shows what is running and anything that needs you. It quits by itself after half an hour with nothing to do.

When it needs you#

A question comes back to whoever started the task. Typed in a terminal, you answer it right there. From a script or another agent, the task ends on its question with exit code 3 and the line that answers it:

yab session resume 4f2a1c "the blue one"

A sign-in, a captcha, a code or a yes to Send or Pay you do in Yab, and a notification says so. After ten minutes the terminal is given back with the same kind of line, and the task keeps waiting; --wait-person changes how long. With --no-person, whatever needs you fails at once instead.

A task’s exit code says how it ended: 0 done, 1 failed, 2 a mistake in the command, 3 it needs you, 130 stopped with ⌃C.

A Mac just for agents#

yab serve keeps a hidden Yab open for good, and yab serve --stop quits it. On a Mac nobody sits at, yab serve --no-person makes anything that needs a person fail at once. Start it from a LaunchAgent, with automatic login: Yab draws its pages through the Mac’s window server, so it needs a logged-in user.

Another browser’s sign-ins#

yab import lists the browsers on this Mac, and yab import chrome brings in its passwords and cookies, so agents find you signed in. Yab asks you to confirm in its own window first, then macOS asks for that browser’s key.

For agents: MCP#

Claude Code and Codex reach Yab through its MCP server, yab-browser, and so can any agent that speaks MCP: see Yab’s tools over MCP.