A browser automation step can finish correctly and still leave a mess. Temporary search pages remain open, another run reuses the same browser state, and a naive cleanup routine risks closing a page the user opened themselves.
AIClaw v3.7.21, released on October 23, adds ownership-based cleanup for browser work. Each execution turn gets its own browser state. When that turn ends, the host cleans up the pages it created and releases debugging connections to existing user pages.
This is a shipped change introduced before the current v3.7.22 release. The source links below are pinned to v3.7.21. The earlier browser-tools article explained indexed page operations; this article focuses on what happens to those pages when the work ends.
Give each execution turn its own browser state
The desktop session manager listens for turn/started and turn/completed notifications. It starts browser state for the first event and begins cleanup for the second. Runtime exit and stop also request cleanup of remaining active turns.
Here, a turn means one execution run within a conversation. Cleanup does not wait until the user archives or deletes the conversation.
The TurnBrowsers coordinator keys its map by the pair of session ID and turn ID. Each entry contains an AgentBrowser instance and a set of pending browser-operation promises. Creating that state does not itself open a window; the built-in window driver opens one when an operation needs it.
This separates concurrent runs. Finishing one turn selects that turn's entry rather than closing a single application-wide browser object that another run might still need.
Wait for an opening page before closing owned pages
An operation can still be creating or loading a page when the execution turn ends. Clearing the browser reference immediately can miss that late-arriving page.
The coordinator records each operation's promise before awaiting it. Its finish sequence is:
const turn = this.turns.get(key);
if (!turn) return;
this.turns.delete(key);
await Promise.allSettled(turn.pending);
await turn.browser.close();
This excerpt is from the coordinator's finish method. Removing the map entry first prevents subsequent browser requests for the finished turn from starting new work. Waiting for the recorded operations to settle gives cleanup a chance to see pages created by operations that were already underway.
The use of allSettled matters because an opening or navigation error must not skip cleanup. It also means closing a page may follow the end-of-turn event rather than happen instantly: an in-flight browser operation can take time to settle.
Track creation, not tab-group membership
AIClaw supports two browser backends, and their cleanup behavior differs:
| Backend | Page created for the turn | Existing user page |
|---|---|---|
| Built-in Electron browser | Close that turn's browser window | Separate from the user's Chrome or Edge pages |
| Browser-extension backend | Remove tabs recorded as created by that turn's driver | Detach debugging without closing the tab |
The extension driver has a random owner ID and tracks tabs it used. When it creates a tab, it includes that owner in the request. On release, it detaches used tabs and asks the extension to clean up pages belonging to that owner.
The extension background script records each numeric tab ID under an agentTab: key in chrome.storage.session, with the owner as its value. Cleanup reads those records and removes only entries matching the requested owner.
The visible AIClaw tab group helps organize pages, but it is not evidence of ownership. A user page in the same group should not be removed by a group-wide sweep. Likewise, selecting an existing user tab does not make it a page created by the driver.
Session storage lets the extension retain those creation records across suspension or restart of its background worker. Chrome's storage documentation also makes the limit explicit: reloading, updating, or disabling the extension, or restarting the browser, clears this storage. These records are not a general recovery database for abandoned tabs.
Preserve the browser's last window
There is another lifecycle edge case: removing the last tab can close its browser window. Avoiding an explicit windows.remove call is not enough.
Before removing an owned tab, the extension queries its sibling tabs. If it is the window's last tab, it creates an about:blank tab in that window first. Cleanup may therefore leave one blank page instead of closing the user's browser window.
Concurrent cleanup introduces a subtle race. With two owned tabs remaining, two turns could both see a sibling count of two and then each remove a tab. Neither would create a replacement page.
The extension serializes cleanup requests through a promise chain. Each request waits for the previous cleanup before performing its own last-tab check. A failed request is still reported to its caller, while the queue's catch handler allows later cleanup requests to proceed.
This coordinates AIClaw's own cleanup requests. It is not a claim that the application controls every other browser extension or a user's simultaneous manual tab actions.
What the regression tests establish
I reran scripts/test-browser-cdp.ts from an export of the public v3.7.21 tag:
node --test --experimental-strip-types --import ./scripts/ts-resolve.mjs scripts/test-browser-cdp.ts
All five Node tests passed. Four cover existing browser helpers; the ownership regression runs the real extension background script with controlled Chrome API substitutes. That test checks several relevant cases:
- Cleaning one owner keeps another owner's tab and a user tab in the same group.
- A fresh worker context can clean up using the retained session-storage records.
- Repeating cleanup does not remove another page, and a manually closed tab is harmless.
- Two owners cleaning their final tabs concurrently leave a blank tab in the window.
- A cleanup request without an owner is rejected.
These are controlled API tests, not a live Chrome or Edge end-to-end run.
The public Electron smoke script additionally exercises the turn coordinator with an isolated bridge: concurrent turns, selected user tabs, a delayed creation request, a failed navigation, and rejection of requests for a finished turn. It also contains a real built-in-window lifecycle check. I inspected those checks but did not rerun that Electron suite for this article. The release notes separately report its local preflight coverage.
Keep the cleanup boundary explicit
Creation defines which pages are temporary. The cleanup code does not infer a permanent ownership handoff merely because a user later looks at an agent-created tab. It is also not a command to close all pages associated visually with AIClaw.
For a manually loaded browser extension, the browser design notes call out the need to reload the extension to enable the new cleanup operation. If the extension is disconnected or cleanup fails, the host logs the error. The implementation does not guarantee that every temporary page disappears after an application crash or an unreachable extension.
Within that boundary, the result is useful: temporary pages follow the lifetime of their execution turn, existing user tabs are released rather than closed, and concurrent cleanup considers the browser window's last-tab behavior. The host owns this lifecycle work, so the model does not need to remember to perform it as a final task step.
This article was generated by an AI agent and checked against public tagged source and release information. The five-test browser module was rerun locally; no live user-browser end-to-end test is claimed.
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