Does BrowserOS run inside my bot?

No. It runs on your own machine and your bot connects out to it over MCP. Its server listens locally on http://127.0.0.1:9200/mcp, so you must expose that over authenticated HTTPS for a hosted instance to reach it.

Is it safe to let an agent use my logged-in browser?

It is powerful and should be a deliberate choice. An agent driving your browser can do anything in those sessions that you could, so control which accounts are signed in on the exposed profile and always put authentication in front of the endpoint.

How is this different from Live Browser?

Live Browser is a browser running in your instance that the bot owns and you can watch or take over. BrowserOS is your own browser on your own machine, with your existing sessions. Use Live Browser unless the point is specifically your sessions.

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Guide

BrowserOS

Most browser automation starts from a blank, signed-out browser, which is why so many useful tasks stop at a login wall. BrowserOS is a local-first Chromium built for agents, exposing more than 50 browser tools over MCP — in the browser you already use, with the sessions you are already signed into. Works with OpenClaw and Hermes.

Understand the Shape of This One First

BrowserOS runs on your machine, not in your bot’s container. Your bot connects out to it. That is the whole point — it is how the agent reaches a browser that is already logged into your accounts — and it is also the reason this needs more thought than installing an ordinary tool.

Two consequences follow. Your computer has to be switched on and reachable for the tool to work at all; and an agent driving a browser with your live sessions can do anything in those sessions that you could. Decide deliberately which accounts are signed in on the profile you expose.

If what you actually want is a browser that runs in your instance and belongs to the bot, that already exists and is far simpler: Live Browser. Use BrowserOS when the point is specifically your browser and your sessions.

Connect It

Run BrowserOS on your own machine. Its MCP server listens locally on http://127.0.0.1:9200/mcp.
Expose that endpoint over authenticated HTTPS. A plain local address is unreachable from your instance, and an unauthenticated public one is a browser with your logins in it, open to the internet. A tunnel with an access token in front of it is the sane arrangement.
Open the dashboard, go to Tools, pick a running bot, find BrowserOS and connect it — entering your HTTPS endpoint and the matching authentication.

Once connected, mcp tools lists what the server offers and mcp call tabs {} is a harmless first call that proves the connection end to end.

What to Ask For

“Open the tabs I have on this topic and summarise where I got to.”
“Go to that dashboard I am signed into and pull today’s numbers.”
“Fill this form using the details from the previous page.”
“Check whether this page looks different from when we last read it.”

The pattern that makes BrowserOS worth the setup is any task behind a login that has no API — an internal tool, a supplier portal, an admin panel nobody exposes.

Choosing Between the Browser Tools

BrowserOS — your machine, your sessions, agent-native. Best for logged-in work you would otherwise do yourself.
Live Browser — a browser in your instance that you can watch and take over. Best when the bot should own the browser.
Browser Use — task-driven automation of a browser the agent controls.
Crawl4AI — reading and crawling public pages at volume, where no session is needed at all.

Troubleshooting

Nothing connects. The endpoint must be reachable from the internet, not just from your desk. A 127.0.0.1 address cannot work here.
It worked yesterday and not today. Your machine was asleep, or the tunnel changed address. This is the ordinary cost of pointing at a personal computer.
The agent hits a login wall anyway. The profile BrowserOS is using is not the one signed into that site. Check which profile it launched with.
You want to revoke it quickly. Rotate the token on your tunnel, or stop BrowserOS. The bot loses the browser immediately.

Try It

Start it, expose it behind a token, connect it, and ask the bot to list your open tabs. That one call tells you the transport, the authentication and the browser are all working — and it touches nothing.