Web Blink

It takes just a blink to control the web. Web Blink learns how web services and web apps work, then hands them to you as reviewed, ready-to-run actions, so you can automate your work from Claude Code or the command line (web-blink, or just blink).

Learn once, use it everywhere. Blink watches how a web app talks to its backend while you (or the agent) use it, and turns that into a reviewed, versioned Blink: named operations with their inputs, effects and login recipe. Everything stays local in ~/.web-blink. Load Blinks from your own Git repository, share them with your team, then call them from your Claude Code or Codex sessions, or as plain CLI commands, scripts, routines and schedules.

Try it: latest NASA news

Read the newest NASA news releases from nasa.gov. No account, no browser, no setup beyond one tool.

1. Install uv once (a small tool that downloads Python and Web Blink for you). Skip this if you have it.

• macOS: open Terminal and run curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
• Windows: open PowerShell and run powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"
• Linux: open a terminal and run curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh (no curl? see uv's install page)

Then quit the terminal app completely and open it again.

2. Get the news:

uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink add nasa-gov
uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink nasa-gov latest-news

The first run takes a few seconds while uv downloads everything. You see:

Added the NASA news releases Blink (public, read-only). Next time it starts right away.
2026-11-08 10:26  NASA Announces $1 Million to Students for Moon Base Challenge
                  https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-announces-1-million-to-students-for-moon-base-challenge/

2026-11-07 17:47  NASA Awards Moon Base Transportation, Technology, Science Projects
                  https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-moon-base-transportation-technology-science-projects/

3. Only releases that mention the Moon (anywhere in the article, not only the title), ten of them:

uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink nasa-gov latest-news --search moon --per-page 10

Why this is allowed: US federal websites are public by policy. The White House memo OMB M-23-22 says their content “may be crawled, archived, or ‘scraped’ by anyone in the general public, at any time”.

Tip: help and examples write commands as blink …. Until you install it (next steps), put the same uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip in front, for example uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink nasa-gov latest-news --help.

Second example: the federal budget by agency

How much each federal agency has to spend this fiscal year, from USAspending.gov (a US Treasury site):

uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink add usaspending-gov
uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink usaspending-gov agency-budgets

Agency                                      Budgetary resources   Share           Obligated  Fiscal year
Department of the Treasury                   $3,982,061,714,338  24.61%  $1,979,847,631,402  2026
Department of Health and Human Services      $3,709,407,922,072  22.92%  $2,803,832,148,218  2026
Department of Defense                        $2,617,506,434,639  16.18%  $1,538,724,925,218  2026
…

These are the same numbers the website's Agency Profiles page shows. Sort differently with --sort budget_authority_amount, --sort agency_name or --order asc.

How this Blink was made. Nobody wrote it by hand: it was learned from a real recording, the same way Blink learns your own apps.

1. Record. Blink opened usaspending.gov/agency in its own browser tab and recorded the 17 requests behind the page, from analytics to api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/references/toptier_agencies/, the call that fills the table.
2. Blink. That one call became the usaspending-gov Blink: one read operation, the page's own sort order as the default, and a check that it works without any login.
3. Run. blink usaspending-gov agency-budgets prints the table above.
4. Script. After a verified run, Blink saved the steps as a routine named budget and generated its script in ~/.web-blink/scripts/.
5. Data. blink routine run budget gets the data any time; add --confirmed --output json in cron or a script.

For your own apps an agent does steps 1, 2 and 4 for you while you work: say “get the federal budget by agency” in Claude Code or Codex, and next time the same phrase runs the saved routine.

Third example: weather alerts

Active National Weather Service watches, warnings and advisories for a state:

uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink add weather-gov
uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink weather-gov active-alerts --area TX

Alert                   Severity  Area                                        Until
Flood Advisory          Minor     Kimble, TX; Sutton, TX                      2026-11-09 18:45 -06:00
Flood Warning           Severe    Llano, TX                                   2026-11-10 01:15 -06:00
Rip Current Statement   Moderate  Aransas Islands; Kleberg Islands; Nueces …  2026-11-10 03:00 -06:00
…

Narrow it with --severity Severe or --event "Flood Warning". A state is required: the whole-country list is too large for one call.

Next steps

• Keep the blink command: uv tool install https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip, then uv tool update-shell, then reopen the terminal app. From then on: blink nasa-gov latest-news.
• Scripts: add --output json for machine-readable results (see the CLI reference).
• More Blinks that ship with Web Blink (NASA news, the federal budget, weather alerts, Claude Console, …): uvx --from https://github.com/patrick-1984/web-blink/archive/refs/tags/v0.18.2.zip blink add (or blink add once installed).
• Your own web apps: install the plugin (below) and ask Claude Code or Codex to do a task there. Blink learns the app while it works.

What you can use it for

• Automate your business apps: timesheets, CRM, ticketing, ERP and HR portals you already sign in to.
• Apps without an API or MCP server: Blink finds the calls behind the pages and exposes them as tools.
• Scrape for private use: turn pages you can see into clean JSON or CSV, within each site's terms.
• From chat to script: do a task once in a coding session, then rerun it as a verified routine or job.

Install in Claude Code

From the patrick-1984 plugin marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add patrick-1984/marketplace
/plugin install web-blink@patrick-1984

Update an existing installation, then restart Claude Code:

claude plugin marketplace update patrick-1984
claude plugin update web-blink@patrick-1984

Install in Codex

The same marketplace works in the Codex CLI:

codex plugin marketplace add patrick-1984/marketplace
codex plugin add web-blink@patrick-1984

Update the marketplace and its installed plugin, then restart Codex to reload the files:

codex plugin marketplace upgrade patrick-1984
codex plugin add web-blink@patrick-1984

See the Codex marketplace update documentation. Web Blink registers no session or lifecycle hooks. Opening a Codex or Claude session does not run Blink status checks or inspect your browser profiles.

Tell Blink which browser/profile to use, or reply with a numbered row such as “use #6”. It shows a browser/profile table with real display names and aliases, remembers the choice and prepares needed local components itself. You do not need to paste paths, run setup commands or edit configuration. Existing live sessions, launching the selected existing profile through PW, an optional PW extension and a new persistent PW browser are separate choices. See browser connections.

When you ask to learn or record an app, Blink connects and starts recording, then guides you through demonstrating the workflow. Opening a browser alone explicitly leaves recording off and offers the next step. Switching browsers during setup keeps your original recording request. Optional consent waits apply only to native Chrome/Edge profiles; other modes connect normally. See the guided recording flow.

Native Windows uses authenticated local named pipes; macOS/Linux use Unix sockets. Normal startup is offline. A requested connection can prepare missing components in Blink's own folder; the host may ask to authorize that tool action. Browser consent remains required, and shared-profile browser restart is blocked because it can affect other profiles.

Your order is the authorization: when you tell Claude to record, propose, switch a Blink on or submit something, Blink adds no separate confirmation dialog by default. Codex or Claude can still ask permission to run a tool; that permission belongs to the host and Blink cannot suppress it. Exact plans, budgets and reconciliation of unknown outcomes still apply. If you want a dialog for every action, opt in yourself: blink configure set approvals dialog (undo with blink configure unset approvals).

Learning on the way (default)

Just ask for the task, for example “in shop.example.net, list my open orders and archive the old ones”. Blink uses an existing Blink when it has the operation. When it has none, it checks bundled, configured and official inventories before recording while the agent does the step, builds or extends the Blink, tests it with your task, and continues through it; every later missing step repeats this. Prefer learning only when you ask? blink configure set learning on-request. For a missing schema, learning starts before the agent navigates or acts on the page. Plain Playwright browsing is used only when you directly ask not to learn. Discovery, account, approval or setup blockers keep the task pending; they never silently switch it to unrecorded browsing. With on-request, the agent asks permission to learn. This routing is part of the plugin's agent instructions; Blink cannot intercept a separate Playwright MCP tool. Details: on-the-way learning.

• Guided recording: say “learn shop.example.net”, demonstrate the workflow once, and say “finished”.
• Assisted learning: when a step is missing and you would rather show it yourself, the agent hands you the recording tab for that one step, then carries on.
• Git repositories: install reviewed Blinks from your own or a shared repository; see Git sources.

What it is

Web Blink is a Claude plugin and scriptable CLI for reviewed, declarative integrations with web services. Blinks live under blinks/. Everything Web Blink keeps for you lives in one private folder in your home, ~/.web-blink (BLINK_HOME selects another): runtime credentials, grants, journals and recordings in state/, global and per-Blink CLI preferences in config/, and your private Blinks in private/. blink doctor shows the folder. Data from older versions (~/.local/state/web-blink and ~/.config/web-blink, or WebBlink on macOS and Windows) moves there once, by itself, when no daemon is using it; the old folder keeps a MOVED-TO-web-blink.txt note.

blink --help
blink doctor
blink configure set output json
blink configure set region europe --blink team:timesheets
blink team:timesheets submit-hours --body file://hours.json --request-id hours-2026-10-27 --yes

The timesheet name illustrates an integration you install or learn; it is not a bundled live connector. Use --dry-run to validate a local plan without dispatch, and stable request IDs to resume a script safely. Writes need an exact native approval; unknown outcomes retain their intent and budget for reconciliation. Successful dispatch is labelled accepted/unverified. blink_verify checks explicit expectations through reviewed reads; writes require correlated read-back and never repeat a mutation for verification. Activation exposes nested parameter schemas before changes; failures retain sanitized stage/field, HTTP status and dispatch evidence. Public reads with incidental cookies can use explicit credential-free checks before anonymous classification. See the execution contract.

Each Blink also has a private Blink for you alone: your login name, field defaults ("leave PTO empty"), preferences and process notes ("fill weeks Monday to Friday"), plus optional secrets kept in a separate file. It lives in $BLINK_HOME/private/<blink>.json (default ~/.web-blink, files 0600, folder 0700), is never shared with the Blink, and Claude reads it before preparing writes. Tell Claude your preference and it saves it (private_set); blink admin --input '{"action": "private", "service": "local:<blink>"}' shows it without secret values.

An order to use an existing Blink starts execution mode without recording: it remembers private account contexts, tries the known login headlessly and cleans up before a visible, prefilled login handoff when needed. Learned phrases can become private, verified routines backed by deterministic CLI scripts with millisecond pacing. A known routine asks once whether to follow its last rules; previews appear only when requested. See Execution mode and routines.

• Result verification: expected versus observed checks, correlated write read-back and pending outcomes.
• Runtime guide: setup, accounts, learning, execution and schedules.
• Use existing browser logins: select Chrome, Edge or Brave profiles, keep personal/admin accounts separate, and discover Firefox profiles.
• CLI reference: command grammar, scripting, defaults and precedence.
• Execution profile: supported request/auth/quote formats and limits.
• Git sources: immutable imports, local trust and publisher verification.
• Custody providers: isolated harvest, C4 permission and fenced hand-back.
• State cleanup: forget/purge and retained unknown-outcome evidence.
• Troubleshooting: when something fails, Claude diagnoses it on the spot and can file an anonymized problem report (you review it first).
• Claude compatibility: official plugin layout and host support.
• Blinks and schema index: versioned portable interaction files.

Load the extracted plugin directory with claude --plugin-dir /absolute/path/to/web-blink. The Node MCP entry supports diagnostics without Python. Prepare locked runtime dependencies explicitly:

uv run --no-project --with-requirements /absolute/path/to/web-blink/requirements.lock python -c "import jsonschema"

The MCP launcher stays offline afterward. The current daemon runs on POSIX hosts; Windows diagnostics remain available. Default shared-browser use is through the existing Playwright MCP, with owned tabs only. Isolated custody needs a provider that proves its capabilities; the shared main profile is never harvested.

In a source checkout, uv run web-blink ... (or the alias uv run blink ...) works from the repository root. The checkout also contains tests and tools. Release builds exclude tests, private runtime state and caches.

Run a synthetic local CLI/MCP demonstration (no real account or external service):

uv run -q --project . python scripts/demo.py

Find a Blink before recording

blink find entra.microsoft.com and MCP blink_find inspect installed, pending, bundled and configured/official catalogs. An available package is staged and activated exactly; incomplete checks keep recording off. Use blink add NAME before the first use of a bundled Blink. See discovery and local repositories.

flowchart LR
  A[Requested operation] --> B{Approved exact operation?}
  B -->|Yes| C[Execute under existing policy]
  B -->|No| D[Inspect all applicable inventories]
  D --> E{Result}
  E -->|Available| F[Select exact package, stage and activate]
  E -->|Incomplete or ambiguous| G[Resolve lookup, source or selection]
  E -->|Complete gap| H[Offer or start recording per learning mode]
  F --> C

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