Remote Chrome

Run OpenCLI on a server or headless environment by connecting to a remote Chrome instance.

Use Cases

• Running CLI commands on a remote server
• CI/CD automation with headed browser
• Shared team browser sessions

Setup

1. Start Chrome on the Remote Machine

# On the remote machine (or your Mac)
/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome \
  --remote-debugging-port=9222

2. SSH Tunnel (If Needed)

If the remote Chrome is on a different machine, create an SSH tunnel:

# On your local machine or server
ssh -L 9222:127.0.0.1:9222 user@remote-host

WARNING

Use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost in the SSH command to avoid IPv6 resolution issues that can cause timeouts.

3. Configure OpenCLI

export OPENCLI_CDP_ENDPOINT="http://127.0.0.1:9222"

4. Verify

# Test the connection
curl http://127.0.0.1:9222/json/version

# Run a diagnostic
opencli doctor

CI/CD Integration

For CI/CD environments, use a real Chrome instance with xvfb:

steps:
  - uses: browser-actions/setup-chrome@latest
    id: setup-chrome
  - run: |
      xvfb-run --auto-servernum \
        ${{ steps.setup-chrome.outputs.chrome-path }} \
        --remote-debugging-port=9222 &

Set the browser executable path:

env:
  OPENCLI_BROWSER_EXECUTABLE_PATH: ${{ steps.setup-chrome.outputs.chrome-path }}