Ghostlight: let Codex work in the browser where you're already signed in

[lbotinelly]

Hi! I'm the author of Ghostlight, a local browser-control MCP server I built with a great deal of help from Codex and ChatGPT. Sharing it here feels pleasantly recursive.

Ghostlight lets Codex use the Chromium profile where you are already signed in.

Not a clean automation profile, a browser running in the cloud, or a janky copy of your cookies. It works inside dedicated Ghostlight tabs, keeps your ordinary tabs outside its reach, and lets you watch the browser work unfold.

I'm a visual person, so I wanted its activity to communicate clearly. Clicks ripple, typing shimmers, drags leave a little comet trail, and longer operations have their own cues. A subtle border shows which tabs are under Ghostlight's control.

You can take the wheel at any time or kill the session completely if something feels wrong.

I wanted browser automation to feel less like handing your credentials to an invisible process and more like working beside a very fast, slightly overenthusiastic assistant.

Ghostlight is especially useful in the awkward space between your code and all the authenticated tools around it: deployment dashboards, issue trackers, internal documentation, admin interfaces, local apps, and development environments.

A few tasks I built it for:

Check whether the latest deployment completed successfully. Inspect the page and network activity, but do not change anything.

Fill out this form using the information in the project, stop before submitting, and let me review it.

Open the staging site, complete the onboarding flow, fix any visible problems you find, and repeat the flow to verify the result.

Try it with Codex

You need Chrome, Edge, Brave, or Chromium 116 or newer.

Install Ghostlight and register Codex:

npx -y ghostlight install --client codex

Then install Ghostlight in Browser, restart Codex, and try a read-only first task:

Open a new tab, go to my GitHub notifications, and summarize the three newest items. Do not mark anything as read or change anything.

If anything looks off:

npx -y ghostlight doctor

Windows and Linux are verified end to end with live browsers. I'll make sure it works on macOS once I get my grubby hands on one. (Donations accepted, btw!)

Why MCP?

The same browser tools work with Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf, Zed, OpenCode, Crush, and other MCP clients. I wanted the browser integration to belong to the user and remain useful even as models and clients change.

The browser engine works without a Ghostlight account, subscription, or hosted service. Personal use can stay wide open. Organizations can add host-scoped permissions, protected domains, observe-before-enforce policies, and structured audit records underneath the model.

All Ghostlight components run in the user's environment. Ghostlight operates no hosted runtime, telemetry backend, or browser-data store. Your chosen MCP client and model provider retain their own data paths and policies.

• Repository and demo
• Chrome Web Store
• Trust Center
• More information about Ghostlight (and other projects!): sylin.org

What signed-in browser task would you try first, and which browser action should always require confirmation?

Hard security questions and unflattering comparisons are welcome too.

Edit: And just for the flex, I used Ghostlight from a Codex session to open this form and fill in the title and body. It stopped before posting so I could review everything and keep the final click. =)