Zenpilot

Let Claude use your Zen browser. Works with Claude Desktop and Claude Code, kind of like Claude in Chrome but for Zen.

There's no browser extension. zenpilot opens Zen with its remote control turned on and talks to it directly.

Alpha. Only tested on macOS with Zen 1.23.

Install

You need a Mac with Zen in /Applications.

Claude Desktop: download zenpilot- .mcpb from the latest release and open it. That's it.

Claude Code (or both): with uv installed, run:

uv tool install zenpilot

zenpilot setup

Setup asks which Zen profile to use and which sites Claude may visit. Then it connects zenpilot to Claude Code (and Claude Desktop, if you have it) and opens Zen. Restart Claude Desktop afterwards.

Either way, zenpilot updates itself to the newest release each time Claude starts it. To stay on one version with uv, install it pinned: uv tool install zenpilot==0.5.0.

Use it

Just ask Claude: *"order a large pizza with bacon on httpbin.org/forms/post for Sam, then submit it"*.

The first time, a few popups may show up. Only you see them, not Claude:

• Which profile? zenpilot is a fresh profile that isn't logged in to anything. Pick your own profile if you want Claude to use sites you're logged into.
• Reopen Zen? If Zen is already open without remote control, zenpilot offers to restart it. Your tabs come back.
• Allow this site? Claude only works on sites you allow. Choose *Don't Allow*, *Allow for 12 Hours* or *Always Allow*. If you miss it, it asks again next time. After *Don't Allow* it waits 10 minutes before asking again, or run zenpilot allow .

Pressing Enter always picks the safe answer.

While Claude works in a tab, an orange glow goes around the page and a zenpilot badge in the bottom-left corner says so. Press Stop on it and Claude stops and asks you what to do. If it tries again anyway, a popup asks whether to let it continue.

Claude can open, switch and close tabs, go to a URL, read the page, click, type, pick from dropdowns, scroll and take screenshots. It can attach files to upload, but only from folders you list in upload_dirs. It can't touch cookies, passwords or downloads, and it can't run its own JavaScript.

When it gets stuck

zenpilot is far from perfect, and every site is different. When Claude can't do something (say, drag and drop), it notes what it tried. zenpilot also notes tool calls that failed or took over 5 seconds. If anything went wrong, a notification at the end of the session points you to a report in ~/.local/state/zenpilot/reports/.

zenpilot report           # show the latest report

zenpilot report --issue # open a GitHub issue with it filled in

What you typed and the pages' text stay out of it, Claude is asked to leave out personal data, and URLs lose their ?query part. Still, read it before you submit.

Staying safe

• Allowlist. Claude only works on sites you've allowed. Add one with zenpilot allow github.com.
• Stick to the `zenpilot` profile if you can. It's logged out of everything. On your main profile, a shady page could try to trick Claude into doing stuff in your accounts, so only allow sites you trust.
• Read-only mode. Set read_only = true and Claude can look but not click or type.
• Log. Everything Claude does is written to ~/.local/state/zenpilot/audit.jsonl, with what it clicked. Typed text isn't logged, only its length. zenpilot log shows it as a timeline.
• Remote control is open while Zen runs this way. Other apps on your Mac could connect to it too, and some sites (banks, Cloudflare checks) may think you're a bot. When you're done, quit Zen and open it normally.

zenpilot also stops Zen from switching off its own protections (Safe Browsing, the popup blocker and so on), which would otherwise happen when remote control is on.

Commands

Settings

They live in ~/.config/zenpilot/config.toml, and changes apply right away.

allowlist = ["localhost", "127.0.0.1"]   # "example.com" covers its subdomains too

read_only = false # true: Claude can look but not click or type profile = "zenpilot" # which Zen profile Claude uses auto_launch = true # open Zen when Claude needs it prompts = true # show the popups above port = 9222 audit_log = "~/.local/state/zenpilot/audit.jsonl" report_dir = "~/.local/state/zenpilot/reports" audit_redact_urls = false # true: leave ?query and #fragment out of the log upload_dirs = [] # folders Claude may upload files from, e.g. ["~/Documents/CV"] dangerously_allow_all_sites = false # skips the allowlist. Please don't.

Uploads need one Firefox setting (dom.file.createInChild) in the profile. zenpilot adds it once upload_dirs isn't empty, and it takes effect the next time Zen starts.

Good to know

• Only one Claude can drive Zen at a time. zenpilot lets go after 2 minutes of doing nothing, so Claude Desktop and Claude Code can take turns.
• Zen can be hidden or behind other windows. It still works.
• Zen loads restored tabs lazily, so Claude only sees an old tab once you've opened it.
• Stuck? Run zenpilot doctor. If Zen says it already has a session after a crash, restart Zen.

Hacking on it

git clone https://github.com/beSaif/zenpilot.git && cd zenpilot

uv sync && uv run zenpilot setup # points Claude at your clone uv run pytest -m "not integration" # unit tests uv run pytest # all tests, needs Zen running (zenpilot launch) ZENPILOT_TEST_PORT=9333 uv run pytest # against a second Zen on a test profile

License

MIT