cli-anything-safari

A command-line interface for Safari browser automation on macOS. Wraps the safari-mcp Node.js MCP server in a Python Click CLI.

Feature parity is guaranteed. Every Click command is generated automatically from safari-mcp's tool schema (bundled as resources/tools.json). All 84 tools are reachable with the exact argument names and types the MCP server expects.

When to use this CLI

Each CLI invocation spawns a fresh subprocess, so there is per-call overhead. If your agent speaks MCP natively (Claude Code, Cursor, Cline, etc.), using safari-mcp directly over MCP stdio will be faster.

Use this CLI when:

• Your agent framework does not speak MCP (Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot CLI, custom scripts, older agent frameworks).
• You need to script browser automation from bash — cli-anything-safari --json tool snapshot | jq '...'.
• You run in CI/CD and want cron-able, subprocess-friendly output.
• You're debugging interactively from Terminal.

Installation

Prerequisites

1. macOS — Safari MCP is macOS-only.
2. Safari — already installed on macOS.
3. Node.js 18+ — brew install node or from https://nodejs.org/
4. Python 3.10+
5. Enable Apple Events for Safari: Safari → Develop → Allow JavaScript from Apple Events

Install the CLI

cd safari/agent-harness
pip install -e .

The first tool call will download the safari-mcp npm package (one-time, a few MB).

Command Structure

The CLI has 5 top-level commands:

Usage Examples

Discover the tool surface

# Count of tools (sanity check — must match safari-mcp's registered tools)
cli-anything-safari tools count
# → 84

# List every tool
cli-anything-safari tools list
cli-anything-safari tools list --filter click   # filter by substring

# Full schema for one tool (JSON or human format)
cli-anything-safari tools describe safari_scroll
cli-anything-safari --json tools describe safari_click

Call a tool (schema-driven)

# Navigate
cli-anything-safari tool navigate --url https://example.com

# Take a snapshot (preferred over screenshot — structured text with ref IDs)
cli-anything-safari --json tool snapshot

# Click by ref (refs come from snapshot; they expire on the next snapshot!)
cli-anything-safari tool click --ref 0_5

# Click by selector or visible text
cli-anything-safari tool click --selector "#submit"
cli-anything-safari tool click --text "Log in"

# Fill a field
cli-anything-safari tool fill --selector "#email" --value "user@example.com"

# Scroll by direction/amount (NOT x/y — note the schema!)
cli-anything-safari tool scroll --direction down --amount 500

# Drag one element onto another
cli-anything-safari tool drag \
    --source-selector ".card" \
    --target-selector ".trash"

# Screenshot — returns base64 JPEG in stdout. Decode with:
cli-anything-safari --json tool screenshot --full-page \
    | python3 -c "import sys,json,base64; \
        d=json.load(sys.stdin); \
        open('/tmp/shot.jpg','wb').write(base64.b64decode(d['data']))"

# Save as PDF (this one writes to disk directly)
cli-anything-safari tool save-pdf --path /tmp/page.pdf

# Evaluate JavaScript (note: parameter is --script, not --code)
cli-anything-safari tool evaluate --script "document.title"

Navigate and read in one round-trip

cli-anything-safari --json tool navigate-and-read --url https://example.com

Form fill (bulk)

safari_fill_form takes an array of {selector, value} objects. Pass it as a JSON string:

cli-anything-safari tool fill-form --fields '[
  {"selector": "#email",    "value": "user@example.com"},
  {"selector": "#password", "value": "hunter2"}
]'

Run cli-anything-safari tools describe safari_fill_form to see the exact schema, including any new fields safari-mcp adds upstream.

Network monitoring

cli-anything-safari tool start-network-capture
cli-anything-safari tool navigate --url https://example.com
cli-anything-safari --json tool network
cli-anything-safari tool performance-metrics

Storage

cli-anything-safari tool get-cookies
cli-anything-safari tool set-cookie --name session --value abc123 --domain example.com
cli-anything-safari tool local-storage --key theme
# export-storage returns JSON to stdout — no --path arg. Pipe to a file:
cli-anything-safari --json tool export-storage > /tmp/storage.json

Raw JSON escape hatch

When you need to pass a complex nested object or want to drive the CLI from a pre-built JSON blob:

cli-anything-safari raw safari_evaluate \
    --json-args '{"code":"[...document.querySelectorAll(\"a\")].map(a => a.href)"}'

Interactive REPL

cli-anything-safari

The REPL banner prints the absolute path to this SKILL.md so agents can self-discover capabilities.

JSON Output

All commands support --json as a global flag:

cli-anything-safari --json tool snapshot
cli-anything-safari --json tool list-tabs
cli-anything-safari --json tools list

State Management

The CLI maintains a small amount of in-memory state for REPL display only:

• last_url — last URL the CLI navigated to (updated after every successful tool navigate, tool navigate-and-read, or tool new-tab)
• current_tab_index — last known active tab index

There is no persistent session, no undo/redo, no document model. Every CLI invocation starts with fresh state. Safari MCP itself is stateless per-call: each tool command spawns a fresh npx safari-mcp subprocess, performs the action, and exits. This is a deliberate design choice; see HARNESS.md and TEST.md for the reasoning behind the deviation from the standard undo/redo pattern.

Output Formats

All commands support dual output modes:

• Human-readable (default): indented key-value text for dict results, bullet lists for arrays, plain text otherwise
• Machine-readable (--json flag): structured JSON for agent consumption

# Human output
cli-anything-safari tool snapshot

# JSON output for agents
cli-anything-safari --json tool snapshot
cli-anything-safari --json tools list
cli-anything-safari --json tools describe safari_click

For AI Agents

When using this CLI programmatically:

1. Always use --json flag for parseable output.
2. Check return codes — 0 for success, non-zero for errors (URL validation failures, MCP call failures, invalid JSON args).
3. Parse stderr for error messages; use stdout for data.
4. File-handling tools have inconsistent path arg names — always check tools describe <name> first:
   • tool save-pdf --path /tmp/x.pdf
   • tool upload-file --selector ... --file-path /tmp/x.txt (note: --file-path, not --path)
   • tool export-storage — no path arg; pipe JSON output to a file
   • tool import-storage --path /tmp/x.json
   • tool screenshot / screenshot-element — return base64 in the JSON response, no path arg (decode it yourself)
5. Snapshot before click — refs from tool snapshot expire on the next snapshot. Always snapshot → find ref → click in close succession.
6. Discover tools via tools list — the bundled registry is the source of truth for what's available. Do not hard-code tool names that may change upstream.
7. Use tools describe <name> to learn the exact schema (required args, enum choices, JSON-typed args) before constructing a call. Never assume parameter names from the description — for example, safari_evaluate takes --script (not --code) even though the description says "JavaScript code to execute".

Agent-Specific Guidance

Finding the right tool

Use the introspection commands. The CLI is guaranteed to reflect the MCP server 1:1:

# Find all click-related tools
cli-anything-safari tools list --filter click

# Get the full schema (including every argument with type, description,
# required/optional, enum choices, defaults)
cli-anything-safari --json tools describe safari_click

Tool selection strategy

1. tool snapshot over tool screenshot — structured text with ref IDs is orders of magnitude cheaper and carries the refs needed for clicks.
2. tool click --ref over tool click --selector — refs are stable within a single snapshot, selectors may be brittle.
3. tool navigate-and-read over navigate + read-page — saves one round-trip.
4. tool click-and-read over click + read-page — saves one round-trip.
5. tool native-click only when regular click fails with 405/403 (WAF blocks, G2, Cloudflare) — it physically moves the cursor.

Refs Expire

Refs from tool snapshot expire when you take a new snapshot:

• First snapshot: refs 0_1, 0_2, 0_3...
• Second snapshot: refs 1_1, 1_2, 1_3...

Always snapshot → click in close succession. If in doubt, snapshot again.

Tab Ownership Safety

Safari MCP tracks tab ownership per session. Tools that modify a tab (navigate, click, fill) are blocked on tabs the session did not open. To operate on a specific page, always start with tool new-tab --url ....

Error Handling

Common errors:

• npx not found → install Node.js 18+
• safari-mcp package not found on npm registry → check network
• Not macOS → harness is macOS-only
• AppleScript denied → enable "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" in Safari → Develop
• Blocked URL scheme: file → URL validation rejected the input (by design)

URL Validation

The CLI validates URLs before passing them to safari_navigate, safari_navigate_and_read, and safari_new_tab. Blocked schemes: file, javascript, data, vbscript, about, chrome, safari, webkit, x-apple, and other browser-internal schemes. The raw command also enforces this for navigation tools.

Multi-Session Warning

Safari MCP enforces a single active session by killing stale Node.js processes older than 10 seconds. If you run two CLI instances at once, one will kill the other's backend. There is currently no daemon mode — for latency-sensitive workflows, drive the CLI from a long-lived Python script that imports cli_anything.safari.utils.safari_backend.call() directly to avoid re-spawning the subprocess on every invocation.

Links

• Safari MCP GitHub
• Safari MCP on npm
• CLI-Anything
• MCP Backend Pattern Guide

Security Considerations

URL Validation

All navigation tools (tool navigate, tool navigate-and-read, tool new-tab, and raw safari_navigate*) pass the url argument through utils/security.py which blocks dangerous schemes and optionally blocks private networks (set CLI_ANYTHING_SAFARI_BLOCK_PRIVATE=1).

Tab Isolation

Safari MCP enforces per-session tab ownership upstream — tools cannot operate on tabs the session did not open.

Profile Isolation

Set SAFARI_PROFILE env var to use a separate Safari profile for automation:

export SAFARI_PROFILE="Automation"
cli-anything-safari tool navigate --url https://example.com

This keeps cookies/logins/history separate from the user's main browsing.

JavaScript Execution

tool evaluate and tool run-script run arbitrary JavaScript in the page context. Treat untrusted input with the same care as any dynamic code execution path.

Clipboard

tool clipboard-read and tool clipboard-write touch the system clipboard. Be careful when running inside a user's active session — overwriting the clipboard mid-task is disruptive.

Regenerating the tool registry

If you upgrade safari-mcp, regenerate the bundled schema:

python scripts/extract_tools.py \
    "$(npm root -g)/safari-mcp/index.js" \
    cli_anything/safari/resources/tools.json

The parity test (test_parity.py) pins the expected tool count; update it when the upstream tool list changes.

More Information

• Full documentation: cli_anything/safari/README.md in the package
• Test coverage: cli_anything/safari/tests/TEST.md in the package
• Architecture analysis: safari/agent-harness/SAFARI.md
• Methodology: cli-anything-plugin/HARNESS.md
• MCP backend pattern: cli-anything-plugin/guides/mcp-backend.md

Version

1.0.0 — targets safari-mcp 2.7.8 (84 tools). Bundled tool registry is regenerated via scripts/extract_tools.py when safari-mcp upgrades.