Summary

Snapshot size is the design decision everything else follows from.

A page dump of 50-60K characters per navigation is what makes browser agents slow and expensive; keeping navigate around 2K and offering a diff instead of a re-read is a direct answer to that. The profile switch matters for the same reason — `standard` is the default because 69 tool schemas degrade a model's tool selection. Extension mode still exists, but the maintainers are explicit that native is the supported path for QA and screenshot evidence.

What it is

An MCP browser-automation server with two backends. Native mode, the default, drives isolated Playwright browser contexts: screenshots come from Playwright rather than the Chrome extension capture API, so they do not depend on Chrome being foregrounded, a tab being visible, or an extension service worker being fresh. Extension mode is legacy and opt-in, for when you need a user's already-authenticated real Chrome profile. Tool count is controlled by a profile so the model does not carry 69 schemas it will never use.

What you get

Small page snapshots by design — about 2K characters on navigate and about 9K for a full snapshot — with `snapshot_diff` returning only what changed between actions instead of re-reading the page
Three tool profiles: `core` with 9 tools (navigate, snapshot, click, fill, type, press_key, wait, screenshot, snapshot_diff), `standard` with 40, and `full` with 69, selected with `PILOT_PROFILE`
The standard profile adds acting and guidance tools, evidence capture, doctor and reset, tabs, scroll, hover, drag, iframes, auth, blocking and find — including `pilot_act` and `pilot_guide`
The full profile adds network interception, assertions, clipboard, geolocation, CDP, evaluate, PDF, responsive testing and deep inspection
One isolated browser context and page per MCP session, so six parallel sessions can navigate and screenshot without sharing tabs, and screenshots are returned as PNG data — `pilot_screenshot`
Cookie import from Chrome, Arc, Brave, Edge and Comet via macOS Keychain or Linux libsecret, and a human handoff for CAPTCHAs — `pilot_import_cookies`, `pilot_handoff`, `pilot_resume`
Iframe support, which the README contrasts with `@playwright/mcp`

Requirements

No account and no key. Node.js >= 18, Playwright Chromium (`npx playwright install chromium` if it is missing), and macOS or Linux; the extension mode additionally needs Chrome plus the Pilot extension. Add it with `codex mcp add pilot -- npx -y pilot-mcp` or the equivalent client config; the published package is `pilot-mcp` 0.4.2 with `pilot-mcp`, `pilot` and `pilot-cli` binaries, over stdio. `PILOT_BROWSER_MODE` selects `native` (default), `extension` or `auto`, `PILOT_PROFILE` selects `core`, `standard` (default) or `full`, `PILOT_HEADLESS=1` runs headless, and `PILOT_OUTPUT_DIR` restricts where screenshots and files can be written. The first Pilot process owns a broker on `127.0.0.1:3131` and later processes connect to it as clients; both the broker and the extension bridge are localhost-only.

Setup effort

One command — npx -y pilot-mcp

Pilot MCP