brawsr Python SDK

The official synchronous Python client for brawsr sessions, checkpoints, rewind, fork, and CDP handoff. It turns asynchronous API operations into one bounded method call; it does not bundle or proxy a browser library.

Published on PyPI as brawsr. Requires Python 3.11+.

Install

pip install brawsr

Install your browser client separately, for example:

pip install playwright

Session and browser connection

from brawsr import BrawsrClient
from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

with BrawsrClient() as brawsr:  # reads BRAWSR_API_KEY
    session = brawsr.create_session(ttl_seconds=300, display_label="checkout retry")
    try:
        with sync_playwright() as playwright:
            connection = brawsr.connect_cdp(session)
            browser = playwright.chromium.connect_over_cdp(
                connection.endpoint_url,
                headers=connection.headers,
            )
            page = browser.contexts[0].pages[0]
            page.goto("https://example.com")
            print(page.title())
    finally:
        brawsr.close_session(session.id)

The production API endpoint is built in as https://api.brawsr.io. Pass base_url="http://localhost:8080" explicitly when testing against another deployment. The client can also receive api_key explicitly instead of reading BRAWSR_API_KEY.

connect_cdp returns immutable connection data. The SDK does not retain the API key in a browser object or speak CDP itself.

get_session(id) returns cdp_url only while the session is attachable, so a restarted process can fetch an active session and pass it directly to connect_cdp. Calling connect_cdp with a closed or expired Session raises a clear local error.

Session workspace

# Pages use opaque cursors; iterators fetch each page lazily.
for session in brawsr.iterate_sessions(status="active"):
    print(session.id, session.display_label, session.attachable)

brawsr.update_session(session.id, display_label="")  # clear the label

# Capture history is an audit view and can include deleted checkpoints.
captures = brawsr.list_checkpoints(session.id)

# Ancestry contains the current rewind candidates. The server revalidates the
# selected capture when rewind is requested.
capture = next(brawsr.iterate_ancestry(session.id))
restored = brawsr.rewind(session.id, capture)

activity = brawsr.list_activity(session.id)
lineage = brawsr.get_lineage(session.id)
for child in brawsr.iterate_lineage_children(session.id):
    print(child.ordinal, child.session.id)

Session lists are newest-first. They support exact status, display_label, and session_id filters, case-insensitive label search, and inclusive created_from / exclusive created_before creation-time bounds. get_session and update_session return SessionDetail, including collection counts, an optional active lifecycle operation, and the canonical collection paths. get_lineage returns one hop: the selected session, its optional parent edge, and a bounded page of direct children. Fetch a child session's lineage to expand a nested fork tree.

Checkpoint and rewind

checkpoint = brawsr.create_checkpoint(
    session.id,
    label="before-submit",
    timeout=30.0,
)

# Continue browser work. This state is intentionally newer than the checkpoint.
page.fill("textarea", "draft that should be discarded")

# A label, checkpoint ID, Capture, Checkpoint, or CheckpointResult is accepted.
restored = brawsr.rewind(session.id, checkpoint)

# Rewind replaces the browser process. The old Browser/Page handles are stale.
# Connect again and rediscover the default context and its pages.
connection = brawsr.connect_cdp(restored)
browser = playwright.chromium.connect_over_cdp(
    connection.endpoint_url,
    headers=connection.headers,
)
restored_context = browser.contexts[0]
restored_pages = restored_context.pages

# The early rewind result is already CDP-usable. Wait only before another
# lifecycle mutation on this same session (for example checkpoint or close).
brawsr.wait_rewind(restored.operation_id)

create_checkpoint, rewind, fork, and delete_checkpoint each send one mutation. When the API returns 202 Accepted, the SDK polls only the operation resource and returns the final result. Callers do not need to implement polling.

Checkpoint labels are case-sensitive and unique among live checkpoints in a session. A label that has the checkpoint-ID shape is rejected; use the returned ID when an immutable reference is required.

Resources and operations

• create_session, list_sessions, iterate_sessions, get_session, update_session, close_session
• create_checkpoint, get_checkpoint, list_checkpoints, iterate_checkpoints, delete_checkpoint
• list_ancestry, iterate_ancestry
• list_activity, iterate_activity
• get_lineage, iterate_lineage_children
• rewind
• fork, close_sessions
• get_operation, wait_operation, wait_checkpoint, wait_rewind, wait_fork
• connect_cdp

Collection iterators are lazy and fetch one bounded page at a time. Cursors are opaque and must be passed back unchanged.

Every waiter accepts a timeout and optional threading.Event. Stopping a waiter does not cancel work already admitted by the server. The operation-specific waiters return the same typed result as the corresponding mutation, including the restored CDP URL after rewind; callers never need to decode raw operation results. get_operation and wait_operation remain available for generic observability.

Fork and explicit cleanup

forked = brawsr.fork(
    session.id,
    checkpoint,
    n=3,
    ttl_seconds=300,
    timeout=30.0,
)

for child in forked.children:
    connection = brawsr.connect_cdp(child)
    # Each child is an independent session. Attach with your browser library.
    print(child.branch_index, child.session_id, connection.endpoint_url)

outcomes = brawsr.close_sessions(forked, concurrency=3)
for outcome in outcomes:
    if not outcome.ok:
        print("close failed", outcome.session_id, outcome.error)

The returned children are immutable and ordered by branch_index. The source session remains open. Children may checkpoint, rewind, or fork again; there is no browser-state merge. close_sessions never selects a winner, closes the source, or hides partial failures. It accepts a fork result, child objects, or session IDs and preserves input order in its outcome tuple.

By default, cleanup requests use isolated HTTP sessions so concurrency does not share mutable requests.Session state. A caller that injects a custom session may also inject a session_factory; without one, cleanup safely serializes while retaining identical ordered outcomes.

Errors and recovery

• BrawsrError: common base for API, transport, operation, response, timeout, cancellation, and closed-client failures.
• BrawsrApiError: safe API envelope with status_code, stable code, request_id, optional operation_id, retryable, and retry_after_ms.
• BrawsrResponseError: the API returned JSON that does not match the public response contract.
• BrawsrOperationError: the server operation reached failed.
• BrawsrWaitTimeoutError / BrawsrWaitCancelledError: local waiting stopped; server work may still complete. For an admitted mutation, operation_id and idempotency_key remain available programmatically for recovery.
• BrawsrTransportError: the transport outcome is ambiguous. Its idempotency_key is available programmatically for recovery but is omitted from the message.

The client does not retry an ambiguous mutation by default. Advanced callers may provide is_pre_response_connection_error; only a definitely pre-response failure is retried, at most once, with the same idempotency key.

Resume a timed-out rewind without resending it:

try:
    restored = brawsr.rewind(session.id, checkpoint, timeout=1.0)
except BrawsrWaitTimeoutError as error:
    if error.operation_id is None:
        raise
    restored = brawsr.wait_rewind(error.operation_id, timeout=30.0)

connection = brawsr.connect_cdp(restored)
browser = playwright.chromium.connect_over_cdp(
    connection.endpoint_url,
    headers=connection.headers,
)

Rewind restores browser/client state, not side effects already committed by a remote website. Long-lived WSS, SSE, or WebRTC connections may need application-level reconnection after restore.

See examples/rewind_playwright.py for an executable reconnect story that rejects a stale page handle and rediscovers the restored pages. A classic Selenium WebDriver session cannot be rebound to the replacement browser in v0.1; a later WebDriver/BiDi adapter owns that contract.

Development

python -m pip install uv==0.10.9
uv sync --locked --all-extras
uv run ruff format --check src tests scripts examples
uv run ruff check src tests scripts examples
uv run mypy src
uv run python scripts/verify_contract.py
uv run pytest -q
uv run python scripts/verify_package.py

The package check uses the release-pinned Python 3.11 + Hatchling 1.31.0 toolchain, builds each archive twice with a fixed source epoch, compares contents and SHA-256, and imports the wheel from a clean temporary install. Use Python 3.11 for this release-only gate; the installed SDK remains supported on newer Python versions.