rustwright

---

What is Rustwright?

Rustwright is a browser automation library for Python and Node.js that keeps the Playwright API you already know but drives Chromium from a native Rust engine speaking raw Chrome DevTools Protocol — no driver subprocess in the path.

playwright-python:  your code ──pipe──► Node driver ──CDP──► Chromium
rustwright:         your code ────────── raw CDP ──────────► Chromium

Quickstart

Rustwright is interoperable with Playwright — install it, change one import, and your existing code runs on the Rust engine.

Python

pip install rustwright
python -m rustwright install chromium

- from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright
+ from rustwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

  with sync_playwright() as p:
      browser = p.chromium.launch(headless=True)
      page = browser.new_page()
      page.goto("https://example.com")
      print(page.title())
      browser.close()

Node.js (experimental)

Install from npm:

npm install rustwright

The Node binding drives an existing Chromium/Chrome — point Rustwright at it with RUSTWRIGHT_CHROMIUM, CHROME, or CHROMIUM. Prefer to build from source? git clone the repo and run npm install && npm run build in node/.

- import { chromium } from 'playwright';
+ import { chromium } from 'rustwright';

  const browser = await chromium.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  console.log(await page.title());
  await browser.close();

See the network-independent examples/quickstart.js example. After building the Node binding from source, run it from the repository root with node examples/quickstart.js.

Only a subset of the API surface is bridged — see Limitations.

CLI (agent-focused)

Install the native rustwright-cli with one command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Skyvern-AI/rustwright/main/install.sh | sh

Then drive a persistent Chromium session from your shell or an agent loop:

rustwright-cli open https://example.com
rustwright-cli snapshot          # compact page tree with @eN refs
rustwright-cli click @e1
rustwright-cli close

See cli/README.md for the full command surface. For a Model Context Protocol server, use the standalone rustwright-mcp package.

Why Rustwright?

• No Node driver subprocess. playwright-python launches and pipes to a bundled Node driver. Rustwright's engine is native — the browser-control code runs in-process.
• Raw CDP, in Rust. A from-scratch async CDP client — not a wrapper around another automation library.
• No Playwright automation fingerprint. The driver never loads, so its signatures never appear. See Automation detection.
• Trusted input. Clicks and typing always use real CDP input events (Input.dispatchMouseEvent), not synthetic element.click() DOM calls.
• Cross-origin iframes (OOPIF). Auto-attaches out-of-process iframe targets with flattened CDP sessions and routes frame_locator() across origins.
• One engine, two languages. The same Rust core backs the Python and Node bindings.

How it works

One Rust core — an async CDP client built on Tokio (WebSocket, with opt-in Unix-pipe transport) — talks to Chromium directly, and thin PyO3 (Python) and napi-rs (Node) bindings expose it in-process. The two-line diagram above is the entire architecture.

Already have a Chromium/Chrome binary? Point Rustwright at it with RUSTWRIGHT_CHROMIUM, CHROME, or CHROMIUM.

Browser automation for AI agents

Give an agent or shell script a browser through compact accessibility snapshots with element refs (e1, e2, …), instead of raw HTML or screenshots. Refs are session-scoped, never reused, and best-effort rather than a security boundary; snapshots include page values but mask password fields.

MCP server — give your agent a browser

rustwright-mcp is a native Rust MCP server (no Python or Node runtime in the serving path) that gives any MCP client browser_* tools over stdio, with compact accessibility snapshots and inline PNG screenshots. It lives in mcp/ and is the canonical Rustwright MCP server.

Install

From source (needs a Rust toolchain):

cargo install --git https://github.com/Skyvern-AI/rustwright rustwright-mcp

This installs the server binary as rustwright-mcp. An npm package (rustwright-mcp, prebuilt binaries via npx rustwright-mcp) is on the way.

If Chrome or Chromium is already installed, point Rustwright at it with RUSTWRIGHT_CHROMIUM (or CHROME / CHROMIUM). Otherwise download one with pip install rustwright && python -m rustwright install chromium.

Fastest path

Claude Code

claude mcp add rustwright -- rustwright-mcp

Claude Desktop

Open ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json on Windows, then use:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rustwright": {
      "command": "rustwright-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Any MCP client

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "rustwright": {
      "command": "rustwright-mcp"
    }
  }
}

If...	Do this
You already have Chrome/Chromium	Set RUSTWRIGHT_CHROMIUM (or CHROME / CHROMIUM) to its executable in the server's env.
You do not have a browser installed	pip install rustwright && python -m rustwright install chromium — the server finds the downloaded browser automatically.
Screenshots are too large to inline	Tune RUSTWRIGHT_MCP_SCREENSHOT_MAX_BYTES; oversized captures fall back to a temp-file path instead of inline image content.

See mcp/README.md for the full tool list and configuration. Setting up via an AI agent? Tell it to fetch https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Skyvern-AI/rustwright/HEAD/mcp/README.md and follow it.

The earlier Python MCP server is deprecated: it stays in place until the native server reaches full tool parity, but new capabilities land in mcp/ only.

CLI — drive a browser from your shell

Drive one persistent Chromium session straight from the rustwright command, with no application code.

Try it in 60 seconds

pip install rustwright
python -m rustwright install chromium

rustwright open example.com
rustwright snapshot
rustwright click e1001
rustwright close

• snapshot shows refs; act by ref, then use the fresh snapshot returned after the action.
• Add --json for one JSON object per command when scripting.
• Use --session NAME for named browser sessions.

See the agent interface guide for every verb, flag, and security detail.

Remote browsers (Skyvern)

Rustwright drives browsers — but you still need somewhere to run them. Skyvern (the team behind Rustwright) offers hosted Browser Sessions as a paid service that funds this project.

Features:

• Persistent cloud browsers — logins, cookies, and tab state carry across runs
• Configurable timeouts — 5 minutes to 24 hours (60 min default)
• Proxies in 21 countries
• Live view — watch and interact with the session in the Skyvern Cloud UI

Each session returns a browser_address CDP endpoint that Rustwright connects to like any remote Chromium (sessions bill while open).

Use chromium.connect_over_cdp() for every remote Chromium connection. BrowserType.connect() is not a CDP alias and does not support Playwright run-server endpoints. See the remote-browser guide for migration steps, endpoint diagnostics, security guidance, and the pinned Open WebUI compose recipe.

Get started:

1. Make an account at app.skyvern.com
2. Grab your API key from Settings
3. pip install skyvern

import asyncio
from rustwright.async_api import async_playwright
from skyvern import Skyvern

async def main():
    session = await Skyvern(api_key="").create_browser_session()

    async with async_playwright() as p:
        browser = await p.chromium.connect_over_cdp(session.browser_address)
        page = await browser.new_page()
        await page.goto("https://example.com")

asyncio.run(main())

Remote sessions are Python-only for now — Rustwright's Node binding doesn't support connect_over_cdp yet (it's on the Roadmap).

Automation detection

Because Rustwright never loads Playwright's Node driver, it never emits the automation signatures that ship with it:

• No Playwright driver signatures — no __playwright__binding__ / utility-world globals, no driver bootstrap. The backend reports playwright_driver: "none".
• No Runtime.enable on the default path — a normal launch + navigate never enables the CDP Runtime domain, closing the Runtime.enable console-serialization leak behind isAutomatedWithCDP. (Console/page-error/binding opt-ins still enable it lazily — detectable by design.)
• Headless identity normalized by default — launches with --disable-blink-features=AutomationControlled, rewrites HeadlessChrome/ → Chrome/ in the UA and client hints, and installs a navigator.webdriver cleanup init script.

Local fingerprint runs — default Playwright failed webdriver/headless checks that Rustwright passed; these are local diagnostics, not a guarantee:

Probe	Result
SannySoft	✅ Clean
BrowserScan	✅ Clean
DeviceAndBrowserInfo	✅ Clean (after the Runtime-domain cleanup)
CreepJS	⚠️ Detects headless

[!IMPORTANT] Rustwright is not "undetectable." It is not a CAPTCHA or Cloudflare bypass, and it is not fully CDP-invisible — it still uses CDP primitives (Target.setAutoAttach, init scripts, and lazy Runtime.enable for console event/pageerror event/binding opt-ins). The claim is narrow: no Playwright-specific automation fingerprint, plus baseline signal hygiene.

Benchmarks

The headline numbers are local diagnostics, not yet capped-CI evidence. On speed, one dev-host run (warm browser, 5 iterations) won 16 of 17 case means:

Run	Cases	Rustwright	playwright-python	Speedup
Local dev host (warm browser, 5 iterations)	17	5,256 ms	13,418 ms	2.55×

Treat it as a diagnostic, not a launch claim — it is not capped-Docker/CI evidence. Methodology: BENCHMARK.md.

On memory, a form-fill diagnostic recorded the client library's footprint at 133.5 MiB for playwright-python (Python + Node driver) versus 40.6 MiB for Rustwright (no driver) — about 70% less; a separate async-concurrency diagnostic measured ~66% less on the same client-stack basis. Both cover the part the library controls — Chromium-dominated whole-process memory is roughly equal — and both are demo-grade diagnostics, not capped-CI evidence.

Alternatives

	Rustwright	playwright-python	Puppeteer	Patchright
API	Playwright-shaped (Py + Node)	Official Python Playwright	JS/TS Puppeteer	Playwright drop-in fork
Engine / transport	Rust core, raw CDP	Python → Node driver	Node over CDP	Patched PW driver
In-process engine (no driver subprocess)	✅	❌ bundled Node driver	✅ Node is the runtime	❌ Playwright-style driver
Browsers	Chromium only	Chromium, Firefox, WebKit	Chrome, Firefox	Chromium-based
Default input	Trusted CDP events	Browser-level	Browser / CDP	Playwright + stealth
Cross-origin iframes	OOPIF (alpha)	Mature	Frame