browser-read#

Extract readable text from an already-open browser page and return markdown, suitable for pages where web_fetch is blocked or missing auth context.

When to use#

• web_fetch returned an error or empty content.
• Page requires authentication/cookies/session state available only in the browser.
• You need text extraction from Twitter/X or LinkedIn timelines/articles where screenshot/OCR was previously used.

When NOT to use#

• web_fetch already returns good markdown/text (faster and cheaper).
• Purely static pages where normal fetch is sufficient.

Steps#

1. Navigate to the URL with browser navigate.
2. Read extraction script from ~/clawd/skills/browser-read/extract.js.
3. Run browser act with kind=evaluate and pass the script contents as fn.
4. Script returns {title, content, excerpt, byline, siteName, length} where content is markdown.
5. If extraction fails or returns empty content, script falls back to document.body.innerText.

Example (tool calls)#

json

{
  "action": "navigate",
  "targetId": "...",
  "url": "https://example.com"
}
{
  "action": "act",
  "targetId": "...",
  "kind": "evaluate",
  "fn": "(() => { ... return {title, content, excerpt, byline, siteName, length}; })()"
}

Notes#

• extract.js is a self-contained IIFE so it can be passed directly as the fn value to browser act.
• Keep in mind this is a lightweight extractor; it intentionally strips script/style/nav/header/footer/aside/cookie/ad elements before conversion.