// agents · lexmount/moli

moli

Production-ready headless browser for AI agents, built in Rust - structure first, pixels only on demand.

★ 13.7k stars⑂ 345 forksApache-2.0updated 2026-10
▦ visual — this project's README ships no embeddable screenshot,
so here's a placeholder. The guide below is complete regardless.
// project facts

Project facts

moli is an open-source ai agents project by lexmount (lexmount/moli on GitHub). It has 13,743 GitHub stars and 345 forks, is released under the Apache-2.0 license, and was last updated on GitHub on 8 October 2026.

Repository
lexmount/moli
GitHub stars
13,743
Forks
345
License
Apache-2.0
Last updated on GitHub
8 October 2026
Category
AI Agents
Listing
Full install guide
Official site
Official site
// how it works

How it works

  1. Decide structure vs pixels

    Most agent tasks need page structure, not rendering: plan to use Moli's default DOM-first mode, enabling --layout only for geometry, screenshots or coordinate input.

  2. Install the prebuilt binary

    Run the one-line installer for Linux/macOS (or the PowerShell installer on Windows) to get the moli CLI.

  3. Fetch your first page

    Use moli fetch to extract a page as Markdown or a compact, model-friendly semantic tree.

  4. Scale up with the server

    Start moli serve and connect your existing Playwright, Puppeteer or Selenium tooling over CDP or WebDriver on the same endpoint.

// features

Why people love it

Structure-first engine

DOM and style state are the single source of truth; layout and paint run only when an operation genuinely needs them, so extraction never pays rendering costs.

Complete web runtime

Streaming HTML parsing, native DOM, V8 JavaScript with workers and iframes, CSS cascade, Fetch/XHR/WebSocket, cookies, WebCrypto and profile-scoped storage.

One binary, three protocols

CDP, WebDriver Classic and WebDriver BiDi share the same kernel - no separate ChromeDriver or browser installation - and Playwright connects over CDP.

Extraction-optimized outputs

The CLI directly produces HTML, Markdown, JSON and semantic text trees, with selector/script/response waits and network tracing.

Visuals on demand

Add --layout for real geometry, hit-testing, coordinate input, viewport and full-page screenshots, PDF output and DevTools screencasts.

Controllable cost model

Expensive operations are explicit opt-ins: resource families, profiles, proxies, caches and timeouts are all configurable, and unsupported paths return explicit errors.

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// run it

Run it yourself

  1. Clone the repository

    Clone Moli if you want to build the Rust kernel from source; most users install the prebuilt binary instead.

    git clone https://github.com/lexmount/moli.git
    cd moli
  2. Install the prebuilt binary

    Use the official installer script for Linux or macOS (a PowerShell installer is provided for Windows).

    curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -fsSL https://github.com/lexmount/moli/releases/latest/download/moli-installer.sh | sh
  3. Fetch a page as Markdown

    Extract a rendered page in a model-friendly format with the CLI.

    moli fetch --dump markdown --wait-until done https://example.com
// use cases

What you can build

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// faq

Questions, answered

Who maintains Moli?

Moli is lexmount's open-source headless browser; the company also offers Lexmount Browser, a managed cloud runtime built around it, but the open-source browser is fully usable without it.

Is Moli free to use?

Yes - it is open source (listed as Apache-2.0, with the README stating a dual-license offer) and the prebuilt binaries are free to download.

Does it need a paid API key?

No. Moli runs locally and needs no account or key; your agent framework supplies the model.

How does Moli compare with headless Chrome or Playwright?

Playwright is a driver that still runs a full browser; Moli is its own Rust browser kernel that skips layout and paint unless needed, using far less CPU and memory per task in its published benchmarks, though it does not aim for pixel-for-pixel Chrome parity.

How do I get started?

Run the installer, then moli fetch --dump markdown on any URL; add moli serve when you are ready to connect automation tools.

// keep exploring

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// alternatives

Alternatives in AI Agents

The most-starred other AI Agents projects in the LibreAI catalogue — the realistic shortlist if moli is not the right fit.

Get moli

Free and open — grab the source, star the repo, and start creating.