octoweb

The browser you reach for when you want to think.

Built on WebKit and Rust. No Electron. No Chrome. No mouse required.

Why Octoweb?

Most browsers are built around the mouse. Octoweb is built around the keyboard — and around the idea that your browser should amplify your thinking, not interrupt it. Every action has a shortcut. The AI assistant lives in a sidebar, not a tab. And your AI tools can drive the browser directly via MCP. No extensions. No config. Just open it and go.

Three things it does differently:

1. Keyboard-first navigation — Every action has a shortcut. Nothing requires a click. The command palette (⌘K) fuzzy-searches tabs and history. Pin any page to a fast-access slot with ⌘⇧1–⌘⇧0 and jump back with ⌘1–⌘0 from anywhere.

2. AI assistant built in — Not an extension, not a tab. A sidebar overlay powered by a local octomind agent via ACP. Ask questions about the current page, get code explanations, summarize content — all without leaving the browser.

3. MCP server inside the browser — Your AI tools can actually drive the browser. Octoweb runs an MCP server on localhost:3434/mcp that exposes 20+ tools for navigation, tab management, page interaction, and content extraction. Point Claude Desktop or any MCP client at it and watch it browse.

Features

• Command palette (⌘K) — Fuzzy search across tabs and history. Type a URL, search query, or page fragment.
• Fast-access slots (⌘1–⌘0) — Pin up to 10 pages for instant access. Footer bar shows all slots.
• AI sidebar (⌘⇧A) — Chat with a local AI agent about the current page. Streaming responses, code blocks with copy.
• Inline AI edit (⌘⇧E) — Select text on any page, transform it with AI. Rewrite, summarize, translate.
• Proactive learning — Background agent periodically analyzes your browsing and memorizes patterns. Opt-in, configurable interval.
• MCP server — 20+ tools for AI clients to control the browser. Navigate, click, type, screenshot, extract content.
• Find-in-page (⌘F) — Full-text search with highlighting.
• Page zoom — +/- to zoom, ⌘0 to reset.
• Screenshots — ⌘S for viewport, ⌘⇧S for full page. Copied to clipboard.
• PDF & DOCX viewer — Open documents directly in the browser.
• Session restore — Tabs and history persist across restarts.
• Favicon caching — No network requests on startup. Icons stored as base64.
• Content blocking — Built-in tracker and ad blocker via WKContentRuleList.
• Smart tab hibernation — Background tabs under memory pressure are frozen.

AI Assistant

Press ⌘⇧A to open the sidebar. It connects to a local AI agent running under octomind using the Agent Client Protocol (ACP). Responses stream in as they arrive.

How it works

octoweb sidebar  ──ACP/JSON-RPC──▶  octomind acp octoweb:assistant
                                         │
                                    specialist agent config
                                    from the tap registry
                                         │
                                    your chosen AI provider
                                    (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)

octomind is a plug-and-play AI agent runtime. You install it once, point it at an API key, and get a fully configured specialist agent — model, system prompt, tools, and all — with zero manual setup. The octoweb:assistant tag fetches that agent's configuration from the community tap registry automatically.

Setup

1. Install octomind:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/muvon/octomind/master/install.sh | bash

2. Set an API key (any supported provider):

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="your_key"   # easiest — covers all providers
# or: OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, etc.

3. Start octomind in ACP mode (octoweb connects to this):

octomind acp octoweb:assistant

octomind fetches the octoweb:assistant agent manifest from the tap, installs any required tools, and starts listening for ACP connections. octoweb's sidebar connects automatically.

4. Open the sidebar in octoweb: ⌘⇧A

Changing the agent

The agent tag in the sidebar header defaults to octoweb:assistant. You can type any tag your octomind instance knows about — developer:rust, assistant, your own custom agents — and the sidebar reconnects to that agent immediately.

No data leaves your machine unless your agent sends it somewhere. The AI provider call is made by octomind, not by the browser.

Proactive Learning

Octoweb can optionally run a background agent that periodically analyzes your browsing patterns and memorizes insights. This is disabled by default and can be enabled in Settings (⌘,).

How it works:

1. Every learning_interval_min (default: 30), the background agent wakes up
2. It collects: open tabs, recent history, and the active page's text content
3. The agent calls remember to check existing memories, then memorize for new insights
4. Insights are stored locally in octomind's memory system

Configuration:

proactive_learning    = true    # enable background learning
learning_interval_min = 30     # minutes between runs

The learning agent runs as a separate octomind acp octoweb:learning process. It's completely independent from the sidebar assistant — you can use one without the other.

MCP server (AI browser control)

octoweb runs an MCP server on localhost:3434/mcp. Any MCP-compatible AI client — Claude Desktop, octomind itself, your own scripts — can use it to control the browser directly.

Claude Desktop / octomind / any MCP client
        │
        │  HTTP JSON-RPC
        ▼
  localhost:3434/mcp  (inside octoweb)
        │
        ▼
  WebKit WebView — navigate, click, type, read, run JS

Available tools:

Point Claude Desktop at http://localhost:3434/mcp and it can browse, read, fill forms, and navigate — all while you watch.

Using octomind as the MCP client

Because octomind has a built-in mcp tool that can register external servers at runtime, you can give any running octomind agent live browser access in one step:

# inside an octomind session
/mcp add octoweb http://localhost:3434/mcp

The agent can now navigate pages, extract content, and interact with the browser as part of its normal tool use — no restart, no config change.

Keyboard shortcuts

Global

Fast-access slots

Pin any page to a numbered slot and jump back to it instantly — one keystroke from anywhere. Slots are shown in a footer bar at the bottom of the window and on the new-tab page.

• ⌘⇧1–⌘⇧9 / ⌘⇧0 — save the current page to slot 1–9 / 10
• ⌘1–⌘9 / ⌘0 — navigate to the saved URL in that slot

Slots persist across restarts. An empty slot does nothing.

Command palette (⌘K)

The main interface. Type a URL, a search query, or any fragment of a page title or URL you've visited — it fuzzy-matches across open tabs and history instantly, ranked by match quality and visit frequency.

When a query is entered, three action rows appear at the bottom: Search Google, Open URL, and Ask AI. Select one and press Enter, or use the dedicated shortcuts below.

AI sidebar (⌘⇧A)

The sidebar overlays the page on the right — the page content underneath is not resized.

Prompt history:

• Ctrl+P / Ctrl+N — Navigate older/newer prompts (MRU order)
• Ctrl+R — Reverse incremental search through history
• Ctrl+E — Accept ghost text autocomplete
• Ctrl+U — Clear input to cursor start

History persists across sessions (ai_prompt_history.json).

Inline AI edit (⌘⇧E)

Select text on any page and press ⌘⇧E to open the inline edit modal. The AI can rewrite, summarize, translate, or transform the selected text.

Prompt history works the same as the sidebar (Ctrl+P/N/R/E/U).

Find-in-page (⌘F)

Full-text search with highlighting. Uses CSS Custom Highlight API for fast, native rendering.

Page zoom

Install & build

Requirements: macOS, Rust toolchain, Xcode Command Line Tools.

git clone https://github.com/muvon/octoweb
cd octoweb

# Dev build (ad-hoc signed, no cert needed)
./build.sh --dev

# Release build (requires Developer ID cert)
./build.sh

# Run
open dist/Octoweb.app

Or install to Applications:

cp -r dist/Octoweb.app /Applications/

Configuration

Config lives at ~/Library/Application Support/octoweb/config.toml. Created on first launch with defaults.

Open Settings with ⌘, to configure visually, or edit the file directly:

home_page              = "https://www.google.com"
search_engine          = "https://www.google.com/search?q={}"
max_history            = 1000
window_width           = 1280
window_height          = 800
ai_edit_auto_hide      = false      # auto-hide inline edit after submit
max_prompt_history     = 50         # editor prompt history size
max_ai_prompt_history  = 50         # sidebar prompt history size
proactive_learning     = true       # enable background learning agent
learning_interval_min  = 30         # minutes between learning runs

Persistence:

• Session — Open tabs and active tab restored on next launch
• History — Browsing history up to max_history entries
• Favicons — Cached as base64 data-URIs, no network on startup
• Prompt history — Separate histories for inline edit and sidebar

What it is (and isn't)

octoweb is an experiment. It's a real, usable browser — WebKit rendering, proper tab management, session restore, back/forward gestures, progress bar, error pages — but it's also a playground for the idea that a browser can be a first-class AI client, not just a container for AI extensions.

It's macOS only. It will stay that way for now — the whole thing leans on macOS-native APIs (CGEventTap for global hotkeys, WKWebView via wry, AppKit for the dock icon and menus).

It won't replace your main browser. It might become the browser you reach for when you want to think.

Tech stack

• wry — WebView (WKWebView on macOS)
• tao — windowing + event loop
• octomind — plug-and-play AI agent runtime powering the sidebar
• agent-client-protocol — ACP for browser ↔ agent communication
• rmcp — MCP server (AI browser control)
• CGEventTap — system-wide keyboard shortcuts without rdev
• Rust, release profile: LTO + codegen-units=1 + stripped binary

License

Apache 2.0