TaskWindow

Let any coding agent drive your real, logged-in Chrome — the tabs you're already signed into — without touching the windows you're working in.

[coding agent] --MCP--> [TaskWindow daemon] --WebSocket--> [Chrome extension] --CDP--> [your tab]

Works with Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, or any client that speaks MCP over HTTP.

Setup (5 minutes)

Requires Node 18+ and Chrome/Chromium 116+.

npm install -g taskwindow
taskwindow install

The guided installer:

• shows a checkbox list of detected coding agents (choose any combination, or None);
• installs the background daemon as a login service;
• opens the TaskWindow listing on the Chrome Web Store and waits for a verified connection.

In Chrome, click Add to Chrome. That is the only click: the extension pairs with the daemon on its own, and the installer prints ready ✓ once Chrome is connected. Chrome keeps the extension up to date from the store.

Installed the extension first? A setup guide opens with the two commands above and turns green by itself as soon as the daemon is running. Coming from the installer, nothing opens.

Try it

Ask your agent: "Open example.com in a new tab and take a screenshot."

A blue tab group named after your task appears in a separate TaskWindow window — the agents' workspace, shared by every task and every agent, and kept open by a pinned tab no agent can close. Screenshot done. Now try: "Find the sign-up link and read the page's headings."

Repair and advanced commands

taskwindow update              # update daemon + extension to the latest release, no clicks
taskwindow doctor              # diagnose daemon, extension, versions, and agents
taskwindow pair                # create a manual one-time pairing code
taskwindow install             # re-run first-time setup; reopens the store listing if the extension is missing
taskwindow install --claude    # add Claude Code without repeating setup
taskwindow install --codex     # add Codex without repeating setup
taskwindow install --cursor    # add Cursor without repeating setup
taskwindow install --opencode  # add OpenCode without repeating setup

The Codex option requires the codex CLI on PATH. It configures the shared user-level MCP connection; restart Codex after registration to load the tools. If you use CODEX_HOME, that directory is respected.

When a newer release exists, agents are told once per session (in the tabs_create result and in taskwindow_status) to ask you before running taskwindow update. The daemon learns this by asking the npm registry for the package's latest version at most once a day; create ~/.taskwindow/no-update-check to turn that off.

Use taskwindow install --no-extension to install only the daemon and selected agents. Developing the extension? taskwindow install --extension <zip> unpacks a build into the TaskWindow Extension folder in your home directory for chrome://extensions → Load unpacked, pairing through a one-time code the installer leaves in that folder; taskwindow update then refreshes those files too. Loaded unpacked before the store listing existed? Remove that copy in chrome://extensions before adding the store one — two copies would keep taking the daemon connection from each other. For another MCP client, connect to http://127.0.0.1:9377/mcp with Authorization: Bearer <token>; the token is stored in ~/.taskwindow/token.

What the agent gets

Area	Tools
Status	taskwindow_status (daemon/extension readiness and recovery guidance)
Tabs	tabs_list, tabs_create, tabs_close, navigate, reload
See	computer (screenshot + click/type/key/scroll), read_page, find, get_page_text
Act	form_input, file_upload, upload_image, javascript_execute
Debug	read_console_messages, read_network_requests
Efficiency	browser_batch (multi-step in one call), gif_record, set_viewport (responsive view), shortcuts_*

How the isolation works

• Task groups & sessions: every tab the agent creates goes into a blue tab group named after its task — one group per agent session, holding every tab of that job however many sub-tasks it spans. The first tabs_create names it; every later tab joins it. Naming the task also says whether the job might take more than an hour (longRunning): a group for a shorter job closes itself, tabs and all, once it has been idle for an hour, so finished work does not pile up in the window; long-running groups stay until unused for 30 days. Sessions are isolated from each other: tabs_create returns a secret sessionToken and every browser tool call is scoped to that session's groups, so concurrent agents never share tabs — even when they pick the same task name. By default the agent can only see and act on tabs in its own groups — never yours. You can click a group in the toolbar popover to watch, and widen access in settings.
• Your focus is never taken: nothing the agent does brings a tab or window forward on you. Chrome's tabs.create makes a new tab active by default and windows.create focuses the new window by default; TaskWindow always opens tabs in the background (a background tab still renders, so screenshots and page reads work), creates the agent window unfocused, and hands focus back if Chrome raises a window anyway. A background tab also takes mouse, wheel and keyboard input over the DevTools protocol (checked in Chrome: click, scroll and type all land in a tab that is not its window's active tab, and it stays that way), so nothing ever brings a tab forward. Clicking a group in the popover is the only thing that focuses the agent's window — and that is you asking for it.
• Pairing: the daemon listens on 127.0.0.1 only. Chrome stamps every request the store extension makes with its fixed extension id as the origin, which no other extension or web page can forge, so the daemon hands the bearer token to that origin and nothing else. An unpacked development build pairs with a short-lived, single-use code the installer leaves in its folder; manual codes are available with taskwindow pair.
• Agent actions are visible: a phantom cursor and glow show where the agent is acting; while it does, Chrome shows a "started debugging this browser" infobar — an unavoidable Chrome policy for this capability, same as Claude's own extension.

Requirements & limits

• Chrome/Chromium 116+ (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Arc…)
• Node 18+ for the daemon
• Page tools run in the top frame; native alert()/confirm() dialogs block the attached tab

Development

git clone https://github.com/clawnify/taskwindow
cd taskwindow/daemon && npm install && npm test

The test suite boots the daemon with a fake extension and runs a real MCP client against it (auth, dispatch, batching, error paths).