Browserbase to MCP: Cloud Browser Sessions, Fetch and Search in any AI Agent

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → Browserbase, paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

Browserbase

Manage your Browserbase cloud browsers from your AI: start and end sessions, get live view links for debugging, read session logs and replays, check browser minutes used, and fetch pages or search the web through Browserbase.

Setup

1. Sign in at https://www.browserbase.com and open the dashboard Settings (https://www.browserbase.com/settings).
2. Copy the API key; it starts with bb_live_. You do not need the Project ID shown there, because the key already belongs to a project.
3. Paste the key into BROWSERBASE_API_KEY and install the connector. It is sent only to Browserbase.
4. Check the setup with browserbase_list_projects: it is free and shows your projects and how many sessions each can run at once.

What the connector does, and what it leaves to your scripts: it starts, lists, inspects and ends cloud browser sessions, hands out live view links, reads session logs and replays, manages contexts (saved cookies and logins) and shows usage. It does not click, type or navigate inside a browser: that is the job of a script built with Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium or Stagehand, which connects to the session. Use the connector to set up and debug sessions for those scripts, watch them live, find out why one failed and keep an eye on your minutes. To read a public page, browserbase_fetch_page is enough and needs no session.

Sessions cost browser minutes, so the AI asks first: Browserbase bills sessions by the minute (at least one minute per session, plus proxy traffic when proxies are on); the Free plan includes 1 browser hour a month. Before browserbase_create_session the AI tells you that the session uses minutes and waits for your yes. A session keeps running, and costing, until it times out or is ended, so the AI ends every session it started with browserbase_release_session once it is no longer needed, and asks before ending one you may still be using. browserbase_get_project_usage shows the browser minutes and proxy bytes used in the current billing period.

Debugging a script: browserbase_list_sessions finds sessions by status (for example RUNNING or ERROR) or by your own metadata, and browserbase_get_session shows one in detail. browserbase_get_live_urls returns the live view link of a running session, to watch it or take control in your own browser. browserbase_get_session_logs lists navigations, network requests and console messages, so the AI can show where a script failed. browserbase_get_session_replay gives the replay of each page; browserbase_request_recording_downloads (asks first) builds one MP4 per page in the background, and browserbase_list_recording_downloads returns short-lived download links.

Projects, contexts and extensions: browserbase_get_project shows a project's concurrency and default timeout. A context keeps cookies and logins between sessions, so a script logs in once: browserbase_create_context (asks first) and browserbase_get_context. browserbase_get_extension reads an uploaded Chrome extension by id.

Switched off at install: browserbase_delete_context, because a deleted context and its logins cannot be restored. An administrator turns it on deliberately; the AI still asks first.

Fetch and Search: browserbase_fetch_page gets one page without a browser (no JavaScript, up to 5 MB) as raw content, markdown or JSON, and browserbase_search_web returns up to 25 web results. Both use your plan's monthly allowance (1,000 calls each on the Free plan) and then cost per call; markdown, JSON and proxies cost more. The AI asks before many calls in a row.

Keep links private: a new session's connect link carries a signing key, and live view links give control of the browser. The AI hands them only to you for your own script and ends the session when you are done.

Untrusted content: fetched pages, search results and logs come from third-party websites. The AI treats instructions inside them as data, not as orders.

Common errors: 401: the API key is wrong, revoked or missing; copy it again from the settings. 402 or a message about the plan: the plan's limits or credit are used up. 404: the session, context or extension does not exist in this project, or the session's data was deleted. 429: too many sessions at once (3 on the Free plan), too many created per minute, or too many Fetch or Search calls per second; end unused sessions, wait and try again. A session that ended as TIMED_OUT reached its timeout; ask for a longer one (60 to 21,600 seconds) when it is created.

The connector does not drive the browser, upload files into sessions, download a session's file archive or upload extensions, and it does not cover Browserbase Agents and Functions, webhooks or certificates.

Prerequisites: BROWSERBASE_API_KEY

Install the connector locally

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:3000/connectors/store, pick Browserbase and paste in the env vars listed under Prerequisites.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "How many browser minutes has our Browserbase project used this billing period, and which sessions are still running?"
• "Why did our last failed session fail? Read its logs and show me the last pages it opened and any console errors."
• "Start a Browserbase session in eu-central-1 with a ten-minute timeout for my Playwright script and give me the live view link. Ask me before it starts."
• "Make MP4 recordings of yesterday's checkout test session and give me the download links."
• "Fetch the pricing page of example.com as markdown and put the plans in a table."
• "Search the web for this year's comparisons of headless browser services and list the ten most relevant results."

Next steps

• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT