web-access-mcp

web-access-mcp is a Rust-based Model Context Protocol server that gives MCP clients browser-backed access to web pages.

The project currently focuses on one compact tool, browser_get_page_as_markdown, which navigates to a URL and returns the page content as Markdown. Internally it launches or connects to a CDP-compatible browser through the Chrome DevTools Protocol.

This repository still uses the Rust crate/package name browser-use, but the intended product surface is the MCP server binary.

Current status

• MCP server implemented with rmcp 1.5.
• Supported transports: stdio and Streamable HTTP.
• SSE transport is no longer supported. rmcp 1.5 removed the old SSE server transport.
• Streamable HTTP enables Host header verification by default. Local loopback hosts are allowed by default; use --allowed-host for public or proxied deployments, or --skip-host-header-verification only when you intentionally want to disable that protection.
• Browser automation is synchronous and backed by headless_chrome.
• Local browser launch supports Chrome/Chromium and LightPanda.
• The exposed MCP tool surface is intentionally small.

Requirements

• Rust toolchain
• Chrome/Chromium or LightPanda installed, unless connecting to an existing browser through CDP/WebSocket

Running the MCP server

# stdio transport, headless browser
cargo run --bin mcp-server

# stdio transport, visible browser
cargo run --bin mcp-server -- --headed

# stdio transport, LightPanda
cargo run --bin mcp-server -- --browser lightpanda

# Streamable HTTP transport
cargo run --bin mcp-server -- --transport http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 3000

# Streamable HTTP behind a hostname or proxy
cargo run --bin mcp-server -- --transport http --allowed-host example.com --allowed-host example.com:3000

MCP tool

browser_get_page_as_markdown

Navigates to a URL and returns the resulting page content as Markdown.

This combines navigation and content extraction in one tool so MCP clients can retrieve web page content with a single call.

Command line flags

Flag	Default	Description
--headed, -H	false	Launch Chrome/Chromium in headed mode instead of headless mode.
--browser <chrome|lightpanda>	unset	Browser implementation to launch. When omitted, Chrome/Chromium is preferred and LightPanda is used as a fallback. If set explicitly, the requested browser must be installed.
--executable-path <PATH>	unset	Path to a custom browser executable.
--cdp-endpoint <URL>	unset	CDP endpoint URL for connecting to a remote browser.
--ws-endpoint <URL>	unset	WebSocket endpoint URL for connecting to a remote browser.
--user-data-dir <DIR>	unset	Persistent browser profile directory.
--transport <stdio|http>, -t <stdio|http>	stdio	MCP transport to use.
--port <PORT>, -p <PORT>	3000	Port for Streamable HTTP transport.
--host <HOST>	127.0.0.1	Address to bind for Streamable HTTP transport.
--http-path <PATH>	/mcp	Streamable HTTP endpoint path.
--allowed-host <HOST>	loopback hosts	Allowed HTTP Host header value. Can be repeated. Supports hostnames and host:port authorities.
--skip-host-header-verification	false	Disable Streamable HTTP Host header verification. Not recommended for public deployments.
--session-inactivity-timeout-secs <SECONDS>	1800	Streamable HTTP session inactivity timeout. Set to 0 to disable automatic cleanup.
--log-file <PATH>	browser-use-mcp.log	Log file path for stdio mode.

Library usage

The crate also exposes lower-level browser automation APIs:

use browser_use::browser::BrowserSession;

let session = BrowserSession::launch(Default::default())?;
session.navigate("https://example.com", None)?;

let dom = session.extract_dom()?;

The library API exists, but the main maintained use case in this repository is the MCP server.

Acknowledgments

This project was inspired by and references agent-infra/mcp-server-browser.

License

MIT