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Stream/Area:
-
Subject:
-
Paper ID:
IJSREM66661
Volume:
10 |
8 |
Aug 2026
Pages:
1-8
Publication Frequency:
Monthly (12 issues per year)
License:International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management follows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing free use and distribution with proper attribution.
Computer Science
Independent Researcher
Large-language-model agents can operate web interfaces through browser automation tools, but the common stepwise pattern repeatedly sends page observations to a model and requests the next action. This adds inference latency, token consumption, and opportunities for untrusted page content to influence control decisions. This paper presents Apex Browse, an open-source Model Context Protocol server that moves routine browser execution out of the language-model loop. An agent expresses a workflow once in a schema-validated JSON domain-specific language; a session-local Playwright executor resolves accessibility-oriented targets, performs allow-listed actions, checks postconditions, and retains compact evidence. Model assistance is requested only when deterministic resolution cannot identify one safe target. The repair packet contains the failed intent and no more than five candidates, and a repair may only select from that set. In a controlled benchmark of five workloads, three execution arms, and ten repetitions per workload-arm pair, Apex Browse completed 49 of 50 agent attempts. Relative to the official Playwright MCP baseline, it reduced summed wall time by 45.9%, token consumption by 54.8%, MCP calls by 68.0%, and serialized MCP-result bytes by 74.3%. Across 49 jointly successful paired trials, the mean wall-time difference favoring Apex Browse was 22.52 seconds, with a deterministic bootstrap 95% confidence interval of 19.62–25.50 seconds. The results support deterministic-first execution for known browser workflows while exposing limits involving task diversity, model dependence, visual interfaces, and one agent-level failure.
KEYWORDS
Apex Browse demonstrates that an LLM need not remain in the loop for every browser action after it has expressed a complete workflow. A strict DSL, session-local Playwright executor, accessibility-oriented resolver, explicit postconditions, compact evidence, and candidate-bound repair can shift routine interaction to deterministic code while preserving a controlled path back to model reasoning. In the reported 150-attempt controlled experiment, Apex Browse completed 49 of 50 agent tasks and substantially reduced wall time, tokens, MCP calls, and serialized result bytes relative to official Playwright MCP. The strongest empirical conclusion is limited but useful: for the tested semantic workflows under the pinned configuration, deterministic-first execution delivered materially lower interaction cost with one observed planner-level failure. The benchmark does not establish universal web-agent superiority, visual competence, or production-grade security. The broader design principle is to reserve probabilistic reasoning for uncertainty and use deterministic systems for execution that can be fully specified and verified. Browser agents need both capabilities. Apex Browse places the boundary at failed semantic resolution and makes that boundary explicit, inspectable, and measurable.
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Publication Date
8/10/2026
Peer Review Type
Double-Blind Peer Review
Review Rounds: 2
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