pinchtab
High-performance browser automation bridge and multi-instance orchestrator with advanced stealth injection and real-time dashboard.
Runs with mockssource: GitHubGoMITcommit 83666d227100
Go, MIT licensed. The project labels itself: browser automation, cdp, golang, headless chrome, orchestrator, stealth and web scraping.
pinchtab runs, with stand-ins for the services it depends on. An Argusic agent installed it in 42 minutes and hit 3 errors and fixed every one without help on a clean machine with no GPU, and the whole session was recorded.
Pinchtab builds from source, 53 of 54 Go test packages pass (1 pre-existing handlers failure), and the bridge serves HTTP 200 health checks with Chrome 131 headless.
What the agent ended up with on a clean machine, in its own words. How this is measured
Measured by Argusic on a fresh machine every time. Every number links to its evidence. Argusic Score 92 of 100 (the mean of this project's run scores).
At a glance
Subject data from GitHub, linked at the top of this page, refreshed . Test data by Argusic (CC BY 4.0); every number links to a run page with the full log, the recording, and their sha256 hashes.
What was measured
From the run that decided this verdict. Every line is a recorded value, not an estimate.
What went wrong, in the agent's own words
The agent's own words, worst first, never rewritten into advice.
- No Chrome/Chromium browser found in container8 minutes
- Test failure: internal/activity/TestQuerySourcesNarrowsFileWalkAndSkipsUnrequestedSource — hardcoded date 2026-09-12 fell outside 7-day retention window, so Query() pruned the test files before reading them3 minutes
- Go compiler not installed in container2 minutes
- Install time
- 42 minutes
- Cold machine to finish
- 41 minutes
- Errors hit and fixed
- 3 hit, 3 fixed with no human help
- How the result was proved
- go build ./cmd/pinchtab exited 0 producing a 42MB binary. go test ./internal/activity/ -run TestQuerySourcesNarrowsFileWalkAndSkipsUnrequestedSource passed after fix. go test ./internal/doctor/ passed with Chrome in PATH. The bridge process started with 'nohup pinchtab bridge --port 19900 &' and curl to /health returned 200 with 'status: ok'. Full go test ./... showed only internal/handlers as FAIL (pre-existing CDP mock tests), all 50+ other packages passed.
- Model tokens used
- 1,287,095
- Exact commit tested
- 83666d227100
- Container image
- sha256:cdd920bce783
What was not measured
The other half, so you can see exactly how far this evidence goes. A gap is printed as a gap and never filled in.
- Peak GPU memory
- this ran on a CPU machine, so there was no GPU to sample
- Behaviour over a long run
- each attempt uses the smallest documented settings and a fixed time budget, so this measures whether it runs, not how it holds up under load
- Behaviour against real services
- this run was verified against stand-in services only
The end of the recording
The last lines of the terminal session that decided this verdict, exactly as they were recorded.
exited 137 in 0ms: exited 137 in 41182ms: Here's my final summary. Let me verify one more thing quickly. exec /bin/sh -lc 'test -f /work/repo/pinchtab && echo "binary exists" && /work/repo/pinchtab --version 2… succeeded in 0ms: binary exists pinchtab dev Here is my complete report. tokens used 1,287,095 Here is my complete report.
Replay the whole session, every command from a clean machine to this point.
How it was tested
One agent, one container, no human help. It installs the project the way its own documentation says to, runs it, and fixes what breaks. Everything below is recorded as it happened: the terminal session, the log and the exact commit. The full method.
Strengths and limits
Measured facts, not opinions. How this is written.
What went well
- Installed in 42 minutes.
- Recovered from all 3 errors without a human stepping in, which says the failures are documented well enough to solve.
- Licensed MIT, as reported by its host.
What did not, or is not known
- Only reached a running state against stand-in services, so nothing here proves it works against the real ones.
- Measured once so far. A single attempt shows it can run, not that it runs reliably.
Also tested, in the same area
Every one of these was installed and run by Argusic on a clean machine. Nothing appears here that was not tested.
Run history
| tested by | attempt | outcome | score | cost USD | when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Argusic Runner | 1/3 | Runs with mocks | 92.00 | 0.27 |
Topics (from GitHub)
browser-automationcdpgolangheadless-chromeorchestratorstealthweb-scraping
Embed the badge
Markdown for the project README. It links back here; terms on the terms page.
[](https://argusic.com/subject/pinchtab)Questions
- Does pinchtab run?
- pinchtab runs, with mocks standing in for external services. Argusic installed and launched it on a clean machine in 42 minutes, hitting 3 errors on the way, and recorded the session.
- How did Argusic test pinchtab?
- On a fresh, disposable machine, with every command recorded and the repository pinned at commit 83666d227100. One attempt is recorded, and the full method is on the methodology page.
- What did it cost to test pinchtab?
- The run that produced this verdict cost $0.27: real compute and model cost, not a list price per million tokens. It is recorded on that run's page.
- How long does pinchtab take to install?
- 42 minutes in the run that decided this verdict, from a clean machine to a running state. That is one measured attempt, not an average.
- Does pinchtab need a GPU?
- Not to start. Argusic reached a running state on a machine with no GPU.
- What goes wrong when installing pinchtab?
- 3 things broke in the recorded run, and 3 were fixed without human help. Each one, and the time it cost, is listed on this page.
- Where is the evidence for pinchtab?
- The recorded run is on this page, each linking to its full log and terminal recording, stored with a sha256 fingerprint so it cannot be quietly altered.