lightpanda

Lightpanda

Fast headless browser (~107MB binary, Zig). No MCP — direct CLI calls only.

Binary: ~/.local/bin/lightpanda

Core Commands

Fetch a URL (dump HTML)

~/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump https://example.com

Save to file (avoid flooding context)

~/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump https://example.com > /tmp/page.html

With logging

~/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump --log_level info https://example.com

Respect robots.txt

~/.local/bin/lightpanda fetch --dump --obey_robots https://example.com

CDP Server (for Playwright/Puppeteer integration)

~/.local/bin/lightpanda serve --host 127.0.0.1 --port 9222

Then connect Playwright via browserWSEndpoint: 'ws://127.0.0.1:9222'.

Usage Rules

• Always save to /tmp/ when fetching pages — never let raw HTML flood context
• Use fetch --dump for read-only content extraction
• Use serve only when interactive automation is needed (prefer fetch otherwise)
• Disable telemetry if needed: LIGHTPANDA_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=true
• Does NOT support screenshots — use Playwright for that

Comparison vs Playwright

	lightpanda	playwright (mcporter)
Overhead	None (pure CLI)	MCP + mcporter
Use case	Read HTML content	Full browser automation
Speed	Instant	Slower startup
Screenshots	No	Yes