running aihawk with claude code

Running AIHawk's browser from Claude Code

If you already use Claude Code, you do not need AIHawk's interface, its CLI, or an OpenRouter key. Claude Code brings the model; you add the browser to it. The browser is the same MCP server AIHawk itself talks to - invisible-playwright-mcp - so anything AIHawk's own interface can do, your assistant can do too, and that is by construction: the interface holds no privileged access, it calls the same tools over the same protocol as any other client.

This page is Claude Code specifically. Claude Desktop and Cursor take a config file instead of a command, and have their own pages: Claude Desktop and Cursor. The config blocks themselves live in the server's README, which is the one place they are kept current.

The one line

Two prerequisites, same as everywhere in this project: Python 3.11 or newer on Windows (x86_64) or Linux (x86_64, arm64) - macOS is not supported, the last engine build for it was firefox-20 - and uv, because the command runs the server with uvx. Then, once:

claude mcp add -s user stealth -- uvx invisible-playwright-mcp

Reading it left to right: -s user registers the server at user scope, so it is available in every project rather than only the directory you happened to be in; stealth is the name it appears under; everything after -- is the command Claude Code will run to start the server, and uvx fetches and runs the published package, so there is nothing to clone or pip-install first. Start a fresh Claude Code session afterwards if one was already open, and /mcp should list stealth among the connected servers.

First run: the download nobody warns you about

Installing the server does not install the browser. The engine is a patched Firefox of roughly a quarter of a gigabyte, and it downloads on the first request that needs a page - which, from inside a chat, looks like your first browsing prompt sitting there doing nothing, and on a slow connection can end in a timeout message that says nothing about a download.

Get it over with first, in a terminal where you can watch the progress:

uvx invisible-playwright fetch

It is cached afterwards and shared by every way into the engine, including AIHawk's own interface if you later run that too.

What Claude actually gains

A set of browser tools, prefixed with the server name you chose. The authoritative list is whatever /mcp shows for your installed server version; the families, with the names AIHawk's own client code knows them by:

• Navigation and tabs: browser_navigate, plus session_new_page, session_select_page, session_close_page and session_list_pages for working across tabs.
• Reading the page: browser_read_text, browser_read_html, and browser_snapshot for a structural view of what is interactive.
• Acting on the page: browser_click and browser_click_at, browser_type, browser_press_key, and - since server 0.10.0 - browser_select_option for dropdowns, added precisely so a model never has to fake a selection through script.
• Seeing it: browser_take_screenshot.

Behind the tools is the point of the exercise: a real patched Firefox that drives pages through actual input events, not a headless toolkit. What that buys, and what it honestly does not, is the blocked page's subject.

Three prompts to try first

Start small, so the first success and the first failure are both legible:

Go to example.com and tell me the main heading on the page.

One navigation, one read. If this works, the server, the engine and the wiring all work. Then something with a decision in it:

Go to [paste the URL of a docs page you actually read] and find the section about installation. Quote the exact command it recommends.

Then something multi-step, the shape most real use takes:

Open [paste the URL of a public page with a list on it], read the first ten entries, and give them to me as a table with a link column.

If that last shape is your actual goal, the extract-to-CSV page takes it the rest of the way. One habit worth forming from the start: ask for one page and one outcome per prompt. The assistant sees the page only through tool results, and short steps keep its context small and its mistakes cheap.

Troubleshooting

• stealth is not listed in /mcp. Run claude mcp list in a terminal to see what is registered and at which scope. If the add command was run while a session was open, the running session may not know it yet; start a new one. If uvx is not on your PATH, the server can be registered and still fail to start - install uv and try uvx invisible-playwright-mcp by hand, which surfaces the real error.
• The first browsing prompt hangs or times out. Almost always the engine download. Run the prefetch command above and retry; afterwards a first page load is seconds, not minutes.
• Tools appear but every call fails. Try the one-line prompt above; if even example.com fails, the problem is below the model - the browser-or-model page is the systematic version of that diagnosis, and blocks and challenge pages have their own checklist.
• You want a proxy, a fixed identity, or a persistent profile. Those are server-side options, configured where the server is configured; the server's README documents them. This page deliberately does not duplicate that reference.

Short answers to the questions that lead here

How do I add AIHawk's browser to Claude Code? claude mcp add -s user stealth -- uvx invisible-playwright-mcp, once, with uv installed. New sessions then have the browser tools in /mcp.

Do I need an OpenRouter key for this? No. The key is only for AIHawk's own interface and CLI, where AIHawk must bring a model. In Claude Code, Claude is the model.

Why does the first browsing request take so long? The engine, about a quarter of a gigabyte, downloads on the first request that needs a page. Run uvx invisible-playwright fetch once in a terminal to do it up front.

Is this different from what AIHawk's own UI drives? No - same server, same engine, same tools. The interface is just another MCP client of it, with no privileged access.

Does it work on macOS? No. The engine ships for Windows and Linux only; the last macOS build was firefox-20.

Can Claude Code and the AIHawk UI share the setup? The downloaded engine is cached once and shared. The server process itself is per-client - each client starts its own - so a page open in one is not visible in the other.

Sources

All retrieved 2026-09-03.

• feder-cr/AIHawk, this repository's README (the verbatim add command, the prerequisites and platforms, the engine download and prefetch, "anything the interface can do, your assistant can do too") and source: src/aihawk/link.py and src/aihawk/web.py (the interface reaching the browser over MCP as an ordinary client), src/aihawk/actions_help.py (the tool names above), and pyproject.toml (the server version floor and why browser_select_option is in it).
• feder-cr/invisible-playwright-mcp, the server itself: config blocks for other clients, server-side options, and the current tool list.

See also: running AIHawk with Claude Desktop, running AIHawk with Cursor, how to extract data to CSV with an AI agent, and browser problem or model problem?.

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From the AIHawk wiki. Claude Code is the shortest route into this browser - one command, against a config file everywhere else - and the README calls the engine fetch "the download nobody warns you about", so consider yourself warned.