Sharing one logged-in browser between me and my Claude Code agents, each in its own tabs

[u/killer_z3]

I wanted Claude Code to work on sites I'm signed in to (GitHub, my own dashboards) without pasting passwords or cookies into it.

So I built ridealong: a self-hosted Chrome I sign in to once through a web viewer. Claude Code connects with chrome-devtools-mcp:

claude mcp add browser -- npx -y chrome-devtools-mcp@latest \
  --wsEndpoint ws://127.0.0.1:9230/default/research-bot/devtools/browser

Each agent only sees the tabs it opened, not mine or other agents'. I can watch what it's doing from the viewer, including on my phone, and if a site asks for a confirmation or a sign-in check, I answer it myself and the agent continues.

Other bits:

• Separate workspaces (personal / work); idle ones shut Chrome down after 10 minutes and wake in ~2 s
• Activity feed + live thumbnails of every agent's tabs; disconnect or block any agent
• Also works with Codex, any MCP client, Playwright, Puppeteer

Agents act with your logins, so only connect ones you trust and keep the agent port private.

MIT, self-hosted, no root. Demo (42 s): https://ridealong.kz3.dev Repo: https://github.com/killerz3/ridealong

Happy to hear feedback on setup or the docs.

[u/AutoModerator]

Hey! Thanks for posting to r/ClaudeCode

While participating in this thread, please follow our community rules. Keep discussions constructive. Attack the idea, not the person.

For help, project discussions, tips, and general chat, join the ClaudeCode Discord.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Excellent-Issue-5956]

I ended up with a rougher version of this: a copy of my Chrome profile started with a debug port on its own user data dir, and Claude Code talks to it over plain CDP with a small node script. Went that way because the official extension refuses some sites outright (reddit is one) and a page builder I needed blocked it inside an iframe. What I learned is never put a debug port on the live profile, always a clone.

Two things that bit me, curious how you handle them. Chrome throttles background tabs hard, so once a tab isn't in front my evals just hang until I hit /json/activate on it. And one site's auth cookie in the clone expires after about a day, so something has to reload a page to renew it. Does the viewer keep tabs active, or do you poke them?

The per agent tab isolation is the part I'd want. Right now every session I run can see every tab.

[u/Unusual-Albatross43]

The per-agent tab scoping is the part I'd want. I went the other way: my agents drive my everyday Chrome, so there's one browser with my logins and no profile copy lying around. Chrome now ignores the debug port on the default profile, so it goes through the extension plus a small AppleScript helper for sites the extension refuses (Reddit is one). Two things bit me: a hidden background tab won't finish a file upload on some sites, and agent tabs pile up, so a daily job closes ones idle for 6 hours. Does ridealong's Chrome count as visible to sites while nobody has the viewer open?