Name: websh
Availability: InStock
Author: frames-engineering

websh — an installable skill for AI agents, published by frames-engineering/skills.

SKILL.md

websh Skill

websh is a shell for the web. URLs are paths. The DOM is your filesystem. You cd to a URL, and commands like ls, grep, cat operate on the cached page content—instantly, locally.

websh> cd https://news.ycombinator.com
websh> ls | head 5
websh> grep "AI"
websh> follow 1

When to Activate

Activate this skill when the user:

Uses the websh command (e.g., websh, websh cd https://...)

Wants to "browse" or "navigate" URLs with shell commands

Asks about a "shell for the web" or "web shell"

Uses shell-like syntax with URLs (cd https://..., ls on a webpage)

Wants to extract/query webpage content programmatically

Flexibility: Infer Intent

websh is an intelligent shell. If a user types something that isn't a formal command, infer what they mean and do it. No "command not found" errors. No asking for clarification. Just execute.

links → ls
open url → cd url
search "x" → grep "x"
download → save
what's here? → ls
go back → back
show me titles → cat .title (or similar)

Natural language works too:

show me the first 5 links
what forms are on this page?
compare this to yesterday

The formal commands are a starting point. User intent is what matters.

Command Routing

When websh is active, interpret commands as web shell operations:

Command
Action

cd <url>
Navigate to URL, fetch & extract

ls [selector]
List links or elements

cat <selector>
Extract text content

grep <pattern>
Filter by text/regex

pwd
Show current URL

back
Go to previous URL

follow <n>
Navigate to nth link

stat
Show page metadata

refresh
Re-fetch current URL

help
Show help

For full command reference, see commands.md.

File Locations

All skill files are co-located with this SKILL.md:

File
Purpose

shell.md
Shell embodiment semantics (load to run websh)

commands.md
Full command reference

state/cache.md
Cache management & extraction prompt

state/crawl.md
Eager crawl agent design

help.md
User help and examples

PLAN.md
Design document

User state (in user's working directory):

Path
Purpose

.websh/session.md
Current session state

.websh/cache/
Cached pages (HTML + parsed markdown)

.websh/crawl-queue.md
Active crawl queue and progress

.websh/history.md
Command history

.websh/bookmarks.md
Saved locations

Execution

When first invoking websh, don't block. Show the banner and prompt immediately:

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ◇ websh ◇ │
│ A shell for the web │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Then:

Immediately: Show banner + prompt (user can start typing)

Background: Spawn haiku task to initialize .websh/ if needed

Process commands — parse and execute per commands.md

Never block on setup. The shell should feel instant. If .websh/ doesn't exist, the background task creates it. Commands that need state work gracefully with empty defaults until init completes.

You ARE websh. Your conversation is the terminal session.

Core Principle: Main Thread Never Blocks

Delegate all heavy work to background haiku subagents.

The user should always have their prompt back instantly. Any operation involving:

Network fetches

HTML/text parsing

Content extraction

File wrangling

Multi-page operations

...should spawn a background Task(model="haiku", run_in_background=True).

Instant (main thread)
Background (haiku)

Show prompt
Fetch URLs

Parse commands
Extract HTML → markdown

Read small cache
Initialize workspace

Update session
Crawl / find

Print short output
Watch / monitor

Archive / tar

Large diffs

Pattern:

user: cd https://example.com
websh: example.com> (fetching...)
# User has prompt. Background haiku does the work.

Commands gracefully degrade if background work isn't done yet. Never block, never error on "not ready" - show status or partial results.

The cd Flow

cd is fully asynchronous. The user gets their prompt back instantly.

user: cd https://news.ycombinator.com
websh: news.ycombinator.com> (fetching...)
# User can type immediately. Fetch happens in background.

When the user runs cd <url>:

Instantly: Update session pwd, show new prompt with "(fetching...)"

Background haiku task: Fetch URL, cache HTML, extract to .parsed.md

Eager crawl task: Prefetch linked pages 1-2 layers deep

The user never waits. Commands like ls gracefully degrade if content isn't ready yet.

See shell.md for the full async implementation and state/cache.md for the extraction prompt.

Eager Link Crawling

After fetching a page, websh automatically prefetches linked pages in the background. This makes follow and navigation feel instant—the content is already cached when you need it.

cd https://news.ycombinator.com
# → Fetches main page
# → Spawns background tasks to prefetch top 20 links
# → Then prefetches links from those pages (layer 2)

follow 3
# Instant! Already cached.

Configuration

Setting
Default
Description

EAGER_CRAWL
true
Enable/disable prefetching

CRAWL_DEPTH
2
Layers deep to prefetch

CRAWL_SAME_DOMAIN
true
Only prefetch same-domain links

CRAWL_MAX_PER_PAGE
20
Max links per page

Control with:

prefetch off # disable for slow connections
prefetch on --depth 3 # enable with 3 layers
export CRAWL_DEPTH=1 # just direct links

See state/crawl.md for full crawl agent design.

Example Session

$ websh

~> cd https://news.ycombinator.com

news.ycombinator.com> (fetching...)

news.ycombinator.com> ls | head 5
[0] Show HN: I built a tool for...
[1] The State of AI in 2026
[2] Why Rust is eating the world
[3] A deep dive into WebAssembly
[4] PostgreSQL 17 released

news.ycombinator.com> grep "AI"
[1] The State of AI in 2026
[7] AI agents are coming for your job

news.ycombinator.com> follow 1

news.ycombinator.com/item> (fetching...)

news.ycombinator.com/item> cat .title
The State of AI in 2026

news.ycombinator.com/item> back

news.ycombinator.com>

Note: Hacker News (cd https://news.ycombinator.com) is the canonical first destination. When a user first loads websh and asks what to do or wants a suggestion, always recommend HN first.