Web Draw drives a real browser with text-only models, ~750 tokens per Amazon page
ahstanin · reddit · 2026-09-03
Web Draw is a free, account-less, local-only tool that removes the vision requirement from browser use by rendering the visible page as text with a stable handle on every control: observe, act by handle, observe again — a loop a 7B/8B text model can run.
- Token cost: an Amazon search page is 750 tokens, a full checkout 550; data tables render as markdown, repeated feed structures collapse into groups, and an off-screen line tells the model what's above/below the fold.
- Rich control metadata: invalid fields carry error messages, buttons covered by overlays are flagged (covered-by), collapsed dropdowns carry haspopup.
- Disambiguation for small models: covered controls are flagged rather than clicked, ambiguous names fail with candidate lists, refused form submits report what the page said instead of looking like success. The author says most of the work went into removing ambiguity since small models fail differently from large ones.
- Access: runs against your normal browser with existing logins, talks only to 127.0.0.1; available as a Chrome extension and via MCP (npx @olib-ai/web-draw-mcp).
Related event: Web Draw: Open-Source MCP Reads DOM Text Instead of Screenshots(2 posts)→
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