Tabhand

Let your AI agents use your own Chrome, signed in to your accounts,
in background tabs that never steal your focus.

tabhand.dev · Docs · Chrome Web Store

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/d5fe5c5a-c012-471f-bf3b-10fa754c382d

_{Video not playing? Watch it on tabhand.dev}

npx tabhand setup

Works with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, Gemini CLI, Copilot and more: 19 agents in all, plus anything else that speaks MCP.

Then add the extension from the Chrome Web Store. Setup opens the page for you. It works in Brave, Edge and Dia too.

Why Tabhand

• Your logins, not a blank browser. Agents work in the Chrome you already use, so email, dashboards and admin panels just work. You never hand over a password.
• You keep working. Every agent gets tabs of its own in the background, grouped under its name and muted. Chrome never jumps to the front.
• Your tabs stay yours. An agent can only reach the tabs it opened, never yours and never another agent's.
• You can watch. Each agent has its own cursor that glides, clicks and types, and its tabs wear its icon. The Tabhand button in Chrome's toolbar shows who's working and pauses every agent at once.
• No servers. Tabhand runs entirely on your computer, with no analytics. Pages only go to the agent you're running. Read the privacy policy.

How it works

agent ──stdio──▶ tabhand mcp ──Unix socket──▶ native host ──native messaging──▶ extension ──chrome.debugger──▶ agent's tabs

• Background by default. Each agent session opens its own tabs with active: false, inside a tab group named after the agent. Focus emulation keeps those tabs rendering, so clicks, typing and screenshots work without bringing anything to the front. Agent tabs are muted, and the agent moves on once a page is usable instead of waiting for every video to load.
• Agents stay in their lane. The extension only lets a session reach tabs that session opened, plus any tabs and popups those pages open. Your tabs, and other agents' tabs, are invisible to it.
• Gets along with password managers. Chrome won't let Tabhand control a page while it shows another extension's frame, such as iCloud Passwords' autofill menu. Tabhand takes those frames out of agent tabs and carries on with the step it was on.
• No network port. The bridge talks over a Unix socket in a directory only you can read, with a fresh token each run. Web pages and other machines can't reach it.
• Nothing sensitive logged, no telemetry. The bridge logs connect and disconnect events

... View full README on GitHub