A text-mode web browser for the terminal. Give it a URL; it fetches the page, converts it to clean Markdown, and renders it with numbered, clickable links — like w3m/lynx, but Markdown-formatted and AI-friendly. Optional reader and AI-summary modes, and one-key saving to an Obsidian-compatible vault.

English · 中文

# Interactive mode — browse with the keyboard
mdbrowser

# Command-line mode — fetch a URL, print it, exit (scriptable / pipeable)
mdbrowser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown
mdbrowser --reader  https://some-blog/post     # just the article body
mdbrowser --summary https://some-blog/post     # article + AI summary
mdbrowser <url> | less                          # auto command-line mode when piped
mdbrowser --help

The bottom toolbar always shows the current mode and the key hints. Shift+Tab flips the mode instantly; press r (or ↵) to apply it to the current page.

Requires Python 3.10+.

git clone https://github.com/kinthaiofficial/mdbrowser.git
cd mdbrowser
./install.sh        # creates .venv, installs deps, downloads Chromium

Put it on your PATH (optional):

sudo ln -sf "$(pwd)/mdbrowser" /usr/local/bin/mdbrowser

The command line has no browser. mdbrowser is the missing glue: it turns any URL into readable Markdown in your terminal, with every link numbered so you can follow it by typing a number (or clicking, in terminals that support it).

            ┌─ tier 1: static  ── Jina Reader (fast, no local browser)
URL ──┤            │ empty / loading? ↓ auto-fallback
            └─ tier 2: rendered ── headless Chromium (Playwright) + html2text
                                     ├ runs JS → handles SPAs
                                     └ ignores bad TLS certs

• Static-first, auto-rendering — most pages load instantly via a static fetch; JS-only SPAs, expired-cert sites, and "loading…" shells automatically fall back to a real headless browser. No manual step.
• Numbered + clickable links — links render as ⟦n⟧ text: type n to follow, or click (OSC 8 hyperlinks). Images show as 🖼 ⟦n⟧ links — no slow, ugly pixel art.
• Text tables — wide tables render as aligned monospace text (never truncated to fit the terminal).
• Reader mode — extract just the article body (via trafilatura), stripping nav/ads/sidebars. Great for blogs and news.
• AI summary mode — append an AI-written summary, using your own model (any OpenAI-compatible API — not tied to any provider).
• Save to an Obsidian vault — press s to clip the page as a Markdown note with YAML frontmatter, local image copies, and [[wikilinks]] between saved pages.
• Persistent history, bilingual UI (English / Chinese), and both an interactive and a command-line mode.

Summary mode appends an AI-written summary using your own LLM via any OpenAI-compatible /chat/completions endpoint. Configure with three env vars:

export MDBROWSER_LLM_KEY=your-api-key
export MDBROWSER_LLM_MODEL=deepseek-chat
export MDBROWSER_LLM_BASE=https://api.deepseek.com

The base URL is stable per provider; model ids change — confirm the current id in your provider's console. A few common providers:

If summary mode is unconfigured, it prints this table in-app so you can copy a setup block. Reasoning models that emit <think>…</think> are handled (the tag is stripped from the displayed summary).

Press s to save the current page. Files land in your vault (default ./mdbrowser-vault, override with --vault <dir> or MDBROWSER_VAULT):

<vault>/
  <Page Title>.md          # article + YAML frontmatter (title, url, fetched, tags)
  attachments/<hash>.png   # original image files
  .mdbrowser-index.json    # url ↔ note index (dedupe + wikilinks)

Open the vault directory in Obsidian to read, search, and graph your clippings. Links to pages you've already saved become [[wikilinks]].

• The UI is English by default; set language Chinese switches both the UI and the AI summary to Chinese (set language English to switch back).
• Settings (language, mode) persist in ~/.mdbrowser/settings.json; history in ~/.mdbrowser/history.

1. Tier 1 (static): fetches via Jina Reader with a links-summary so most pages — including many SPAs — return clean Markdown with their links, no local browser needed.
2. Tier 2 (rendered): when the body is empty or still shows a loading placeholder, it renders the page in headless Chromium (Playwright, ignoring TLS errors) and converts the result with html2text.
3. Reader / summary render the page then extract the article with trafilatura (summary additionally calls your LLM).

MIT © 2026 Freddy Chu. See LICENSE.

Contributions are welcome — see the contributors.