webnav

Stop your web-browsing AI agent from re-exploring the same sites every run. Your agent maps a website once — then travels it forever with webnav walk: deterministic, zero-LLM, page-to-page autopilot that pauses only at genuine forks (what to buy, an irreversible button) and hands the wheel back. It's a reusable site map, not page compression — most token-saving tools shrink what the agent reads; webnav remembers where things are so it stops re-finding the route. webnav is the map and the mechanics; the agent keeps all the judgment.

See it

A real run against saucedemo's full checkout flow (map + credentials already recorded):

$ webnav walk --start www.saucedemo.com:login --goal www.saucedemo.com:checkout-overview
{ "status": "needs-navigation",
  "semanticStep": "open the shopping cart",
  "question": "before \"open the shopping cart\", fire these in-page affordances: aff_addcart",
  "snapshot": "…", "session": "walk-w-…", "browserSession": "w-…" }
   # ^ paused at a REAL fork: webnav won't decide what you buy. The agent picks from the snapshot:

$ webnav use click e54 --session w-…          # add-to-cart — the agent's one judgment call
$ webnav walk-resume walk-w-… --ref e124      # continue; e124 = the icon-only cart badge
{ "status": "done", "cost": { "playwright_calls": 12 } }

4 agent-visible CLI calls, login → inventory → cart → checkout form (auto-filled from locally-stored creds — never in the map) → overview. 12 browser actions underneath, zero agent tokens spent on navigation.

In our navigation benchmark (both arms on Haiku, the same browser underneath), on a deep multi-step route walk used ~3× fewer agent steps than an agent ad-hoc-driving the raw browser — median 6 calls vs 18 — and reached the goal more reliably (3/3 vs 2/3). Honest caveat, also in that file: the win shows up on deep, reliably-walked routes; on shallow 1–2-hop routes, or when the agent falls back to manual driving, the two tie. webnav helps most exactly where ad-hoc driving hurts most — the long, repeated journeys.

Drive a tab from a side panel (Chrome extension)

There's also a Chrome extension in webnav-extension/ — a docked side panel where you type a goal and watch the agent drive your active tab (read / click / type / scroll, via chrome.debugger/CDP), on your own Claude Code subscription. It recalls first (list_routes → check_route) so a site you've mapped is replayed, not re-explored — and every run is recorded back into the map, so the next time is the cheap deterministic walk.

• Ask (approve a plan first) or Act (run on its own); irreversible steps (pay / place order / delete) always pause for you.
• Watch every step — narration + the tool trail render live; a cursor glides to each action.
• Take over any time, drive by hand, hand back.
• Teach mode — flip to Teach and demonstrate a task by hand once; it becomes a named, deterministic route any agent can walk (typed values never leave the browser).

Try it (needs the local server for the zero-LLM navigation + recording):

cd webnav-extension && npm i && npm run build   # emits the *.js next to *.ts
webnav dev agent-serve --port 7779              # prints a token — paste it into the panel

Then chrome://extensions → Developer mode → Load unpacked → pick webnav-extension/, open the panel (toolbar icon or ⌘/Ctrl-E), paste the token, and type a goal. Runs show up on the dashboard tagged Extension. Full walkthrough: webnav-extension/README.md.

Why

Web agents re-discover the same websites every single day, paying the same token bill every time: snapshot → reason → click → snapshot. For sites you (or your agents) use repeatedly — internal tools, automation testing, back-office workflows — that navigation should be remembered, not re-reasoned. webnav stores the durable intent of each step, replays it deterministically, self-heals when the site drifts, and never auto-fires an irreversible action: commit points always pause for the agent (or you) to decide.

Quickstart (≈2 minutes to a working walk)

# Node 18, 20, or 22
npm install --global @playwright/cli@latest @dikshanty94/webnav@latest

# A complete Saucedemo map ships with webnav. Credentials stay local on your machine.
webnav creds set www.saucedemo.com username=standard_user password=secret_sauce
webnav walk --start www.saucedemo.com:login \
            --goal www.saucedemo.com:checkout-complete --headless
# → webnav drives the known route and pauses before irreversible decisions.

webnav dev list             # inspect the local map store

The seeded Saucedemo map is a working example. To map your own site, hand an agent the prompt in docs/LEARNING-A-SITE.md, record a session yourself, or use the Chrome extension below. For development, map packs, and contributing from source:

git clone https://github.com/lucyfuur94/webnav-core
cd webnav-core
npm install && npm link     # source checkout: runs current TypeScript via tsx
webnav --help               # the tool menu (a peer of playwright-cli)
npm test                    # unit tests (+ gated browser e2e)
npm run build               # tsc -> dist/ (only for the published build; the CLI runs src directly)

Using it from an MCP client (Claude Desktop/Code, etc.) — webnav serves every verb as an MCP tool over stdio, so your agent gets walk/use/search/… natively, no shelling out. One line:

{ "mcpServers": { "webnav": { "command": "webnav", "args": ["mcp"] } } }

How the map grows (start here if you're new)

webnav is a map — and a fresh install is not blank, but it is small. Here's honestly what you get and how it grows, so there are no surprises:

• What ships, out of the box. The first time you run any verb, webnav seeds a shared map at ~/.webnav/webnav.db (per-user, shared across every terminal/folder on the machine — not a per-directory file). It comes pre-seeded with one worked example: saucedemo.com — a full login→browse→cart→checkout walk map. This works immediately:

  bash

  webnav walk --start www.saucedemo.com:login \
              --goal www.saucedemo.com:checkout-complete      # saucedemo, seeded
  

  Nothing else is seeded — webnav is a blank-slate map tool, and saucedemo is the single example that proves it works. You record your own sites (see below); that's the product. This fits any flow you repeat against the same site: automation testing, internal tools, back-office workflows, recurring agent tasks. (An earlier GitHub-recall

  • internet-graph engine — the v1 proof-of-engine — was removed from the tree 2026-06-13; it lives in git history if that surface ever returns.)

• The map persists and self-heals. It's saved to ~/.webnav/webnav.db and reused on every run — you do not rebuild it each time. When a remembered step drifts (a renamed or moved element), a walk escalates once for the agent to pick the element, then writes the fix back so the next run resolves it deterministically (principle #3). Routes you use stay fresh. Credentials for login-gated sites live outside the map, locally, at ~/.webnav/credentials.json (chmod 600) — never in the DB, never shared.

• Mapping a NEW site — hand your AGENT the learn prompt. webnav is built for agents, so you don't map by hand: you give an agent (even a cheap one — we use Haiku) the reusable prompt in docs/LEARNING-A-SITE.md and let it run autonomously. It drives the site once through webnav's use primitives while recording, then dev graph-analyse --draft folds that into a SELF-VERIFIED map (absolute URLs, unique element fingerprints, the in-page affordance repertoire, the declared domain shadow) which it persists with dev graph-edit. No hand-authoring of fingerprints or URLs. (That prompt learned the seeded OrangeHRM map — login + 11 modules, exercised — in a single one-shot run.) Re-learn cleanly with dev node-clear.

• Or skip learning — import a map pack someone already made. A map travels as a pack, so only the first person learns a site. webnav dev import-map <pack.json> loads a site's skeleton; set your own login with dev creds set (packs are skeleton-only, never carry credentials). Two packs ship in mappacks/ (saucedemo, OrangeHRM); dev export-map <site> makes your own to share.

• Or record a site by browsing it yourself. No agent needed: run webnav dev record-live --session S --url <site> — it opens a headed browser at that URL, and you click through the flow naturally. Every action you take is captured (real playwright a11y snapshots, never typed values — only which field changed) into the same session store the agent-record path uses. Stop with Ctrl-C or webnav dev record-stop --session S, then it's the same dev graph-analyse <session> --draft → graph-edit → walk pipeline.

• Or drive + record from the Chrome extension — the side panel above: give the agent a goal, it drives your active tab (recalling known routes first), and the run is captured back into the map. (An earlier extension capture-only path that approximated the a11y tree from the raw DOM is retired — it broke on SPAs; the current extension captures via real CDP accessibility instead. dev ingest still exists as that legacy receiver.)

• Inspect what you have anytime: webnav dev dashboard (a localhost operator UI). Its Sessions tab lists every recorded run — tagged by source (Extension / Agent / Manual), with a filter, step counts, and a Verified badge — plus record-by-clicking + replay:

  

  Or the text views dev outline <site> / dev mermaid <site>.

TL;DR: out of the box you can walk saucedemo; everything else you map yourself. Same machine + a mapped site → instant, cached, self-healing. A brand-new site → you (or your agent) record it once first.

Verbs

# Travel a map you've built (the core win: deterministic, low-token replay)
webnav walk --start <state> --goal <state>   autopilot a multi-step route; pauses at genuine forks
webnav walk-resume <session> --ref|--classify   answer a paused walk's fork and continue
webnav creds set <site> key=value...         store login/form creds locally (~/.webnav, chmod 600)

# Drive a live browser one step at a time (explore/build; each step recordable)
webnav use navigate <url> --session S        open a URL (records a landing if S is recording)
webnav use snapshot --session S              read the page + element refs (never records)
webnav use click <ref> / use type <ref> <t>  act on a ref; records the before/after effect
webnav read <url> [--raw]                    open a URL -> distilled content
webnav search "<query>" [--top N]            open-web search -> extracted evidence
webnav eval <url> "<js>" | network <url>     targeted JS extraction | the page's API calls

# Author a site's map (the record -> analyse -> edit flow)
webnav dev record-start / record-stop        bracket a mapping session
webnav dev record-live --session S --url U   headed browser; click through it yourself, webnav records
webnav dev agent-serve [--port 7779]         local server the Chrome extension drives (SSE + CDP); records each run
webnav dev ingest [--port 7778]              legacy receiver for the retired DOM-capture extension path
webnav dev graph-analyse --session S [--draft]  mechanical structure from what you recorded
                                             (--draft = a self-verified, ready-to-edit graph spec)
webnav dev graph-edit --node <id> --graph J  write the validated graph
webnav dev effects --session S               the RAW recorded before/after snapshots
webnav dev outline <site> | mermaid <site>   completeness check | renderable diagram
webnav dev graph-show --node <id>            a site's stored states + edges (JSON)
webnav dev export-map <site>                 a site's map pack as JSON (skeleton only, no creds)
webnav dev dashboard [--port N]              local operator UI: sites + JSON map + credentials
webnav dev list                              the sites you have maps for + state counts
webnav dev node-clear / node-rm --node <id>  empty a site's map (re-learn) / delete it entirely
webnav dev node-add / edge-add / capture     teach + inspect helpers

webnav <verb> --help for details. Output is JSON on stdout; exit 0 ok / 2 error / 3 empty.

MCP server

webnav mcp serves every verb as an MCP tool over stdio — point an MCP client at it and agents get the verbs natively (no shelling out). Tools are generated from the same command registry as --help, and every call runs the real CLI, so the two surfaces can't drift:

{ "mcpServers": { "webnav": { "command": "webnav", "args": ["mcp"] } } }

Consumer verbs can also be invoked canonically as webnav use <verb> ... and map-authoring verbs as webnav dev <verb> ...; bare consumer verbs (e.g. webnav read ...) still work too.

Inspect a site's map

The map is for the calling AGENT (walk), not a human dashboard. To inspect what's captured, use the text views — no UI:

webnav dev outline www.saucedemo.com    # top-to-bottom states + affordances + completeness cues
webnav dev mermaid www.saucedemo.com     # paste into GitHub/mermaid.live to render
webnav dev graph-show --node <id>        # raw JSON

Architecture (one CLI, three components, ZERO LLM)

• Explorer — reads a site's declared structure (observe-first), folds a recording into a self-verified map draft (states, typed affordances, the declared domain shadow), recognizes states.
• MapStore — SQLite persistence: states (+ affordances + declared shadow), projected edges, the site-node index, and record sessions.
• Router — walks a route, replays it (cached selector → deterministic fingerprint re-resolve), self-heals, returns evidence OR a needs-navigation/needs-classification "your move" response for the agent. Never judges, never calls an LLM.

Source map (src/)

cli.ts, cli-spec.ts, cli-help.ts     CLI: parsing, command registry, help rendering
protocol.ts, contract.ts             walk response types · published @dikshanty94/webnav types
paths.ts, creds.ts, hosted.ts        ~/.webnav paths · local credential store · remote-map client
mcp/       server.ts                 `webnav mcp`: every verb as an MCP tool (generated from cli-spec)
mapstore/  types.ts, store.ts, record.ts, schema.sql   SQLite persistence (states+affordances+shadow, edges, nodes, node_edges, record sessions)
playwright/ adapter.ts, snapshot.ts, capture.ts, fingerprint.ts, sessions.ts, throttle.ts   playwright-cli child-process · a11y snapshot parser · element fingerprints · session guardrails
explorer/  analyse.ts, diff.ts, draft.ts, shadow.ts, fingerprint.ts, fingerprint-page.ts   analyse a recording → self-verified draft (affordances + declared domain shadow) + state recognition
router/    resolve.ts, replay.ts, path.ts, walk.ts, walk-live.ts, walk-session.ts   deterministic resolve/replay + interactive multi-step walk + pathfinding
           readiness.ts, extract.ts, extract-content.ts, tokens.ts, browse.ts, read.ts   bot-wall detection · signal/content extraction · token-savings · page reading
           search.ts, search-providers.ts, search-live.ts                 multi-provider open-web search
           catalog.ts                                                     dev list (the map index)
graph/     seed.ts, teach.ts, edit.ts, show.ts, coverage.ts               map authoring + inspection (saucedemo seed, graph-edit, graph-show, outline/mermaid)
dashboard/ server.ts, shell.ts                                            `webnav dev dashboard` local operator UI

Tests mirror this under tests/. The live e2e walk tests are gated behind WEBNAV_LIVE=1.

Principles (full list in CLAUDE.md)

1. Observe first, traverse rarely. 2. Never traverse a declared commit point. 3. Store durable semantic routes; cache selectors. 4. Usage-learned weights are a hosted-service concern. 5. The map surfaces evidence; the agent judges. 5a. ZERO LLM in webnav — all reasoning offloaded to the calling agent via a call-and-response protocol. 6. The map is a use-case-independent navigation skeleton; goals declare signal interests. Never evade bot-walls — detect + escalate.

Status

All current work is merged to main, tests green. See docs/STATUS.md for the live checklist, pending work, and known limitations; CLAUDE.md holds the settled design, mental model, and principles. Design docs: docs/superpowers/specs/.

Contributing

PRs welcome — see CONTRIBUTING.md (the settled principles, dev setup, and how to contribute a site map or map pack — the highest-leverage contribution). Map packs are skeleton-only and never include credentials; the shipped examples are in mappacks/. Report security issues privately per SECURITY.md. Be excellent to each other: CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md.

License

Apache License 2.0. Free to use, modify, and redistribute (including commercially) with attribution: retain the copyright notice and the NOTICE file. Includes an explicit patent grant. Copyright 2026 Dikshant Yadav.