I Turned My Browser Into a Terminal — And Now I Control Any Website From the Command Line
TL;DR — OpenCLI is a 23K⭐ open-source tool that turns any website into a CLI command. Install it with npm install -g @jackwener/opencli, connect your browser, and instantly run commands like opencli reddit hot --limit 20 or opencli twitter trending. No API keys, no anti-bot detection, no writing scrapers.
The Problem: Websites Are Walled Gardens
I've been building AI tools for content gathering. Every time I need data from a website, it's the same pain:
- Check if they have an API → 90% don't
- Try web scraping → hit Cloudflare/anti-bot
- Use Puppeteer/Playwright → write 200 lines of boilerplate
- Handle logins, cookies, sessions → another rabbit hole
This is absurd. We're developers. We should be able to read data from any website as easily as we run ls.
What Is OpenCLI?
OpenCLI (23K⭐, Apache-2.0) takes your browser — the one you're already logged into — and exposes every website you visit as CLI commands.
How It Works
Your Terminal → OpenCLI → ✅ Your Browser (Chrome extension) → Any Website
- Install one npm package
- Install one Chrome extension
- That's it. Your logged-in browser becomes the bridge.
100+ Website Adapters
| Category | Platforms |
|---|---|
| Social | Reddit, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Bilibili, Douyin/TikTok |
| Content | YouTube, HackerNews, ProductHunt, Medium |
| Developer | GitHub, Stack Overflow, Docker Hub |
Why This Beats Everything Else
| Tool | ⭐ | What It Does |
|---|---|---|
| Playwright | 70K | Browser automation |
| Puppeteer | 90K | Headless Chrome |
| CLI-Anything | 50K | Turns CLI tools into AI tools |
| OpenCLI | 23K | Turns websites into CLI |
The killer feature? It works through your already-logged-in browser.
Getting Started (3 Minutes)
npm install -g @jackwener/opencli
opencli --version
opencli list
opencli hackernews top --limit 5
One Thing Nobody Tells You
OpenCLI has a built-in AI agent skill called opencli-browser-bridge. It can navigate to any URL through your browser, click buttons, fill forms, read network requests, and extract page data. It's the missing "hands" for AI agents.
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