Browserless
Headless Chrome automation in the cloud — 8 operations for screenshots, PDFs, content extraction, scraping, performance audits, and custom JavaScript execution.
What is Browserless?
Browserless is a hosted headless Chrome API service. It runs a full Chromium browser in the cloud that you can control via API — navigating to URLs, rendering JavaScript-heavy pages, and extracting content — without managing any browser infrastructure yourself.
The BizFirst Browserless node wraps the Browserless.io REST API, making it straightforward to take screenshots, generate PDFs, extract structured data, run performance audits, and execute arbitrary JavaScript against any web page.
Operations — 8 Total
| Operation | Description |
|---|---|
content | Navigate to a URL or render HTML and return the fully rendered HTML after JavaScript execution. |
download | Download a file from a URL and return it as base64-encoded binary output. |
pdf | Generate a PDF document from a URL or HTML string and return it as base64 bytes. |
performance | Run a Lighthouse performance audit on a URL and return the full metrics JSON including FCP, LCP, CLS, TTI, and scores. |
screenshot | Capture a PNG or JPEG screenshot of a URL or HTML string and return it as base64. |
scrape | Extract structured data from a URL or HTML using CSS selector rules — returns typed values (text, attributes, inner HTML, or evaluated expressions). |
unblock | Bypass bot detection to retrieve the rendered HTML of pages that block standard headless browsers. |
execute | Run custom JavaScript in the context of the loaded page and return the result value. |
Authentication
| Property | Details |
|---|---|
| Auth method | API token passed via the Browserless API key header or embedded in the self-hosted URL. |
| Where to get it | Sign up at browserless.io and copy your API key from the dashboard. For self-hosted deployments, use your instance URL and configured auth token. |
| Node property | ApiToken — required on every operation. |
Common Capabilities
Most operations share a large set of browser control properties:
- URL or HTML input — provide either a URL to navigate to, or raw HTML to render locally
- Wait controls — wait for a CSS selector, DOM event, JavaScript function, or a fixed timeout before capturing
- Network control — block ads, images, fonts, scripts, or specific URL patterns to speed up requests
- Authentication — HTTP Basic Auth credentials for password-protected pages
- Viewport and user agent — simulate any device or browser fingerprint
- Script and style injection — inject custom scripts or stylesheets before capture
- Cookie injection — pass cookies for authenticated sessions
Use Cases
- Web scraping — extract prices, listings, or content from JavaScript-rendered pages using CSS selector rules
- PDF generation — create invoices, reports, or certificates from HTML templates
- Screenshots — capture dashboards, charts, or full-page snapshots for weekly email reports
- Performance testing — run automated Lighthouse audits on production pages and alert when scores drop
- Automation — execute JavaScript to fill forms, click elements, or extract dynamic content not available in HTML
In This Guide
Configuration
Full reference for all 8 operations — shared common properties table plus per-operation extra properties.
Input & Output
Output formats: base64 PNG, base64 PDF bytes, rendered HTML string, scrape structured data, Lighthouse JSON.
Examples
Five examples: dashboard screenshot, HTML-to-PDF invoice, price scraping, blocked resource optimisation, and Lighthouse audit.