nodecode-aside

Aside Browser: drives the user's signed-in Aside browser through the local aside CLI. A Nodecode rewrite of leonphull/hermes-aside-browser by leonphull.

Aside is a browser that keeps the user's real signed-in sessions and talks to the machine through one command-line program. This cell runs that program: the model asks it for a task in the browser, the browser does it in the profile the user is already logged in to, and the answer comes back as text. Nothing of the user's cookies passes through Nodecode, and this cell reads no cookie jar, no password store and no Aside model file.

The wrapper adds what a raw command line does not have. The operator's pins — host, account, model, effort, speed and permission — ride every call, and the model cannot set a host, an account or a permission even if it sends one. A session is never continued from here, because the cell cannot verify the permission or the host it would run under -- a session_id on a call is refused rather than quietly ignored; archive and delete need an explicit confirmation. A long screenshot is named rather than pasted into the turn. And with browser_policy set to always, the built-in browser's tools are refused while Aside answers, so a logged-in site is not opened twice.

Get it

Tell the agent "add the aside cell", or run nodecode add nc://nodecode-aside.

Set it up

Aside must already be installed and running; this cell never downloads or installs it. Install or update the CLI from Aside's own Settings → Developers, then name it once. In /settings (or the page's Settings tab), under aside:

bin — required. The aside executable, for example ~/.local/bin/aside, which is where the app usually puts it. Without it the folder is REFUSED with the reason on the /cells line and in the model's notices.
permission — ask (the default), guard or full-access: what the CLI may do without asking. It is the operator's setting, never a tool argument, and it covers aside_exec only: aside_repl runs a script the model wrote, and the vendor's own MCP connector is outside this wrapper entirely.
browser_policy — prefer (the default) lets the model choose; always refuses the built-in browser's tools while Aside answers. blocked_tools names what counts as the built-in browser; empty means browser_* and web_fetch.
host, account, model, effort, speed — pins. Empty means Aside's own default, and host: "local" pins the local host, which is not guaranteed otherwise.
timeout_seconds — one aside_exec task's ceiling; 300 by default.

If the executable is not where bin says, the cell also looks at $ASIDE_BIN, then PATH, then ~/.local/bin, /usr/local/bin and /opt/homebrew/bin.

Use it

/aside shows what the probe said and the pins behind it, with a row for each thing it does; /aside status, /aside sessions, /aside exec …, /aside repl … and /aside stop ses_… do them directly.
aside_status — is the CLI there and does the app answer (READY, ASIDE_NOT_RUNNING, NEEDS_ASIDE), and which pins are in force.
aside_exec — one task in the signed-in browser. The route for logged-in sites and anything that takes several steps.
aside_repl — one one-shot Playwright-style JavaScript script, for a snapshot, a click or a screenshot. Bindings do not survive the call.
aside_session — list, stop, archive, delete. Never resume: start a new aside_exec and restate the context.
aside_memory — one to three read-only searches of Aside's memory.
(help :aside) is the manual a model reads.

What runs

One executable, an argument vector and no shell. The probe is one aside repl that prints a marker; aside_exec is aside exec [--host …] [--account …] [--model …] [--effort …] [--speed …] --permission … <prompt>; aside_memory is aside memory search [--account …] --json -n N <query>. The prompt is one argument, so a task that reads like a sentence stays one. A question that starts with - is refused rather than read as a flag, and a session id must start with ses_. Output is the CLI's own, with a long base64 line named rather than carried and the whole cut at 48k.

Layout

cell.lisp — the section, the five tools, the gate, the command and the manual.
test/ — the slice: the lifecycle, each tool through a scripted CLI, the command, the gate.

.github/test-cell.sh tools/nodecode-aside runs it offline: no test needs Aside installed, and none starts a process.

nc://aside