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Azeruddin Sheikh
Azeruddin Sheikh

Posted on • Originally published at github.com

Tappi MCP Is Live - Give Claude Desktop a Real Browser

#ai #python #mcp #automation

Earlier today I published Every AI Browser Tool Is Broken Except One - a controlled benchmark of tappi against Playwright, playwright-cli, and OpenClaw's browser tool. Tappi went 3/3 with correct data at 59K tokens. The next-closest tool burned 252K. Before that, I introduced tappi in Your Browser on Autopilot - a local AI agent that controls your real browser, 10x more token-efficient than screenshot-based tools.

Today, tappi ships something I've been wanting since I started building it: an MCP server.

What Changed

pip install tappi now gives you everything - CDP library, MCP server, and AI agent. No more extras. No more tappi[mcp] vs tappi[agent]. One install, all features.

pip install tappi
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And for Claude Desktop users who don't want to touch a terminal: a .mcpb bundle you double-click to install.

Why MCP Matters

MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard that lets AI agents use external tools. When tappi exposes its 24 browser control tools as an MCP server, any MCP-compatible client can use them:

  • Claude Desktop - ask Claude to browse the web, fill forms, extract data
  • Cursor / Windsurf - your coding agent can check docs, test deployments, scrape reference data
  • OpenClaw - tappi is already a ClawHub skill, now with MCP as a first-class transport
  • Any MCP client - tappi speaks stdio and HTTP/SSE

The difference between "Claude that can search the web" and "Claude with a real browser" is enormous. A real browser means:

  • Logged-in sessions. Your Gmail, GitHub, Jira, Slack - already authenticated.
  • No bot detection. It's your actual Chrome, with your fingerprint and cookies.
  • Shadow DOM support. Reddit, GitHub, Gmail - tappi pierces shadow roots automatically.
  • Cross-origin iframes. Captchas, payment forms, OAuth popups - coordinate commands handle them.

The .mcpb Bundle - Zero-Config Install

The .mcpb format is Claude Desktop's extension system. It's a zip file with a manifest and source code. Claude Desktop manages the Python runtime via uv - you don't need Python installed, you don't edit JSON configs, you don't run pip install.

  1. Download tappi-0.5.1.mcpb
  2. Double-click it
  3. Claude Desktop installs the extension
  4. Start Chrome with tappi launch or --remote-debugging-port=9222
  5. Ask Claude to browse

That's it. Here's a real conversation where Claude uses tappi MCP to open a browser, search Google for Houston events, and extract the results - all from a natural language prompt.

Claude Desktop using tappi MCP to search Google

Four Ways to Use Tappi

Tappi isn't just a CLI tool anymore. Here's the full picture:

1. MCP Server (for Claude Desktop, Cursor, etc.) 

tappi mcp              # stdio (Claude Desktop, Cursor)
tappi mcp --sse        # HTTP/SSE (remote clients)
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Or the .mcpb bundle for zero-config Claude Desktop install.

2. OpenClaw Skill 

clawhub install tappi
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OpenClaw's agent orchestration gives tappi access to cron scheduling, multi-session coordination, and cross-tool pipelines. If you need a browser step inside a larger workflow - email monitoring, social media automation, data collection - this is the integration point.

3. Standalone AI Agent 

bpy setup              # one-time: pick provider, API key, workspace
bpy agent "Go to GitHub trending and summarize the top 5 repos"
bpy serve              # web UI with live tool-call visibility
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Tappi's built-in agent has 6 tools (browser, files, PDF, spreadsheet, shell, cron) and supports 7 LLM providers including Claude Max OAuth - use your existing subscription, no per-call charges.

4. Python Library / CLI 

from tappi import Browser

b = Browser()
b.open("https://github.com")
elements = b.elements()   # indexed list, shadow DOM pierced
b.click(3)
text = b.text()
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Or from the command line:

tappi open github.com
tappi elements
tappi click 3
tappi text
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A Note on Rate Limits

The Claude Desktop and claude.ai web interface have conservative rate limits. If you're doing heavy browser automation - scraping 50 pages, monitoring feeds, running cron jobs - you'll hit throttling fast.

For serious agentic work, use tappi through:

  • An API key (Anthropic, OpenRouter, OpenAI) via bpy agent - you control the rate limits
  • OpenClaw - designed for long-running, multi-step agent workflows
  • tappi's agent package (bpy agent) with Claude Max OAuth - same subscription, better throughput than the web UI

The .mcpb bundle and Claude Desktop are perfect for ad-hoc tasks - "check this page," "fill out this form," "extract this data." For pipelines and automation, use one of the agent approaches above.

What's Next

Tappi started as a 100KB CDP library. Now it's a full browser automation platform for AI agents - MCP server, standalone agent, web UI, Python library, and Claude Desktop extension. All from pip install tappi.

If you tried tappi before: update to 0.5.1. The MCP server is the biggest addition since the agent mode.

If you haven't tried it: github.com/shaihazher/tappi

pip install tappi
tappi launch
tappi mcp
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Or just download the .mcpb bundle and double-click.

Previously: Tappi: Your Browser on Autopilot · Every AI Browser Tool Is Broken Except One

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