I built GhostTab: AI agents drive my real browser as text, in a hidden tab

Description and use

GhostTab lets AI agents control a real browser via text in a hidden tab, saving tokens and avoiding screen takeover.

Problem

Screenshot-based browser agents were slow, expensive, and intrusive, taking over the screen.

Outcome

In one day, an agent used GhostTab to submit ~40 job applications on LinkedIn Easy Apply and Greenhouse, improving speed and reducing token cost by 5–10×.

Workflow

• Start hidden browser with b bg on
• Navigate to URL with b go https://example.com
• Read page slice with b text 0 2000
• List clickable elements with b el
• Click element with b click 12
• Retrieve form fields with b form
• Fill form from JSON with b fillform @answers.json
• Perform OCR with b ocr total

Evidence

Screenshot-based browser agents were slow and expensive for me, and they kept taking over my screen.

Source

A screenshot costs roughly 1,500 tokens. A compact text view of the same page, with numbered elements, is usually a few hundred.

Source

This week my agent used it to fill and submit about 40 job applications (LinkedIn Easy Apply and Greenhouse) in one day.

Source

macOS only for now (AppleScript plus an optional extension bridge for background real input). Free and open source (MIT).

Source