Sessions & Browsers — se-cli Docs

Named sessions

By default every command targets the default session. Pass -s=<name> to isolate a session — each named session gets its own daemon, WebDriver, and browser, so you can drive several in parallel and switch between them freely.

🏷️

Named session

bash

se-cli -s=alpha open https://example.com
se-cli -s=alpha snapshot
se-cli -s=alpha title
se-cli -s=alpha close

se-cli list
# alpha    chrome    running
# default  —         (none)

🔄

Parallel multi-browser

bash

# Two sessions, two browsers
se-cli -s=chrome open https://example.com \
  --browser=chrome
se-cli -s=firefox open https://example.com \
  --browser=firefox

se-cli -s=chrome title
se-cli -s=firefox title

se-cli -s=chrome close
se-cli -s=firefox close

🔌

CDP attach

bash

# Start Chrome with debugging
google-chrome --remote-debugging-port=9222

# Attach to the running browser
se-cli open --cdp=http://localhost:9222
se-cli snapshot
se-cli screenshot --filename=debug.png
se-cli close

Persistent profiles

Use --profile or --persistent (v0.2) to keep cookies, localStorage, and login state across runs. This is essential for authenticated workflows where you log in once and reuse the session.

Flag	Description	Example
`--profile=<path>`	Persistent user data directory — reuse a real browser profile	--profile=/tmp/se-profile
`--persistent`	Auto-assign a userDataDir so state is retained automatically	se-cli open --persistent
`--browser=chrome\|edge\|firefox`	Per-session browser selection	--browser=firefox
`--headed`	Show the browser window (default: headless)	se-cli open --headed

Combine with state-save. For cross-machine portability, prefer state-save over profiles — JSON is portable, a userDataDir is not.

Daemon lifecycle

The daemon is spawned on the first open and persists across CLI calls. It holds the WebDriver instance, the snapshot tree, and the ref registry. Three mechanisms keep it healthy and reclaim resources.

selfDestructOnIdle

Self-destructs after 30 minutes with no requests (configurable). Prevents orphan daemons from leaking memory when an agent walks away.

heartbeat

The driver periodically calls getTitle() as a liveness check. If the browser process died silently, the daemon detects it and reports DAEMON_DEAD.

gracefulShutdown

SIGTERM/SIGINT → quit driver → delete the .session file → exit. close triggers the same path; kill-all force-terminates everything.

Session registry

.session JSON files live in <cache>/ms-se-cli/daemon/. list reconciles them with live processes and cleans up orphans.

bash

se-cli list              # see all sessions + reconcile orphans
se-cli close-all         # graceful close of every session
se-cli kill-all          # force-kill all daemons + browsers

Stuck daemon? See the Troubleshooting guide for manual cleanup of .session files and socket paths.