ShadowCrawl

CortexScout (cortex-scout) — Search and Web Extraction Engine for AI Agents

CortexScout is the Deep Research & Web Extraction module within the Cortex-Works ecosystem.

Designed for agent workloads that require token-efficient web retrieval, reliable anti-bot handling, and optional Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) fallback.

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Overview

CortexScout provides a single, self-hostable Rust binary that exposes search, extraction, and stateful browser automation capabilities over MCP (stdio) and an optional HTTP server. Output formats are structured and optimized for downstream LLM use.

It is built to handle the practical failure modes of web retrieval (rate limits, bot challenges, JavaScript-heavy pages) through progressive fallbacks: native retrieval → Chromium CDP rendering → Stateful E2E Testing → HITL workflows.

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Tools (Capability Roster)

| Area | MCP Tools / Capabilities | |------|---------------------------| | Search | web_search (URL discovery) or web_search(include_content=true) (search+content in one call) | | Fetch and Crawl | web_fetch(mode="single"|"batch"|"crawl") (unified fetch family) | | Extraction | extract_fields (primary structured extraction) | | Automation | scout_browser_automate / browser_automate (stateful omni-tool), scout_agent_profile_auth, scout_browser_close | | Anti-bot handling | CDP rendering, proxy rotation, block-aware retries | | HITL | visual_scout, hitl_web_fetch(auth_mode="challenge"|"auth") | | Memory | memory_search (LanceDB-backed research history) | | Deep research | deep_research (multi-hop search + scrape + synthesis) |

Legacy names remain callable as compatibility aliases (web_search_json, web_fetch_batch, web_crawl, fetch_then_extract, human_auth_session). Agents should prefer the unified primary tools above. ---

Ecosystem Integration

While CortexScout runs as a standalone tool today, it is designed to integrate with CortexDB and CortexStudio for multi-agent scaling, shared retrieval artifacts, and centralized governance.

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🎭 The "Playwright Killer" (Stateful Browser Automation)

CortexScout includes a built-in, stateful CDP automation engine designed specifically for AI Agents, completely replacing heavy frameworks like Playwright or Cypress for E2E testing workflows.

• The Silent Omni-Tool (scout_browser_automate): Instead of calling dozens of browser tools, agents pass one array of steps. The runtime now covers Playwright-style action families in one call: navigation, hover/click/type/wait, locator-driven actions, assertions, tabs, screenshots/PDF, file upload, form fill, dialog policy, coordinate mouse actions, route mocking, console/network capture, and cookie/storage CRUD.
• Persistent Agent Profile: Automation runs silently in the background (--headless=new) using a dedicated isolated profile (~/.cortex-scout/agent_profile). It maintains cookies, localStorage, and session state across tool calls without causing SingletonLock collisions with your active desktop browser.
• QA Mock, Trace, And Verification Engine: Agents can install route mocks (mock_api, route_list, unroute) with response header overrides/stripping, trace flows (trace_start, trace_stop, trace_export), capture console/network logs, checkpoint browser state, and run both CSS and locator-based assertions plus Playwright-style verification helpers.
• The Agent Auth Portal (scout_agent_profile_auth): If the silent agent encounters a CAPTCHA or complex OAuth login (like Google/Microsoft) on a new domain, this tool launches the agent's profile in a visible window. You solve the CAPTCHA once, the cookies are saved, and the agent returns to silent automation forever.

Playwright-Style Coverage Map

| Capability Area | Cortex Scout Actions | |-----------------|----------------------| | Navigation and input | navigate, navigate_back, click, hover, type, press_key, scroll, wait_for, wait_for_selector, wait_for_locator | | Locator and verification | click_locator, type_locator, assert, assert_locator, generate_locator, verify_element_visible, verify_text_visible, verify_list_visible, verify_value | | Tabs and media | tabs, resize, screenshot, snapshot, pdf_save, file_upload, fill_form, handle_dialog | | Network and mocks | network_tap, network_dump, network_state_set, mock_api, route_list, unroute | | Browser state | storage_clear, storage_state_export, storage_state_import, storage_checkpoint, storage_rollback, cookie_*, localstorage_*, sessionstorage_* | | Low-level pointer control | mouse_click_xy, mouse_down, mouse_move_xy, mouse_drag_xy, mouse_up, mouse_wheel |

The main tradeoff versus raw Playwright MCP is packaging, not capability shape: Cortex Scout keeps the browser surface inside one stateful omni-tool so agents spend fewer turns and fewer tokens coordinating multi-step flows. ---

Anti-Bot Efficacy & Validation

This repository includes captured evidence artifacts that validate extraction and HITL flows against representative protected targets.

| Target | Protection | Evidence | Notes | |--------|-----------|----------|-------| | LinkedIn | Cloudflare + Auth | [JSON](proof/linkedinevidence.json) · [Snippet](proof/linkedinrawsnippet.txt) | Auth-gated listings extraction | | Ticketmaster | Cloudflare Turnstile | [JSON](proof/ticketmasterevidence.json) · [Snippet](proof/ticketmasterrawsnippet.txt) | Challenge-handled extraction | | Airbnb | DataDome | [JSON](proof/airbnbevidence.json) · [Snippet](proof/airbnbrawsnippet.txt) | Large result sets under bot controls | | Upwork | reCAPTCHA | [JSON](proof/upworkevidence.json) · [Snippet](proof/upworkrawsnippet.txt) | Protected listings retrieval | | Amazon | AWS Shield | [JSON](proof/amazonevidence.json) · [Snippet](proof/amazonrawsnippet.txt) | Search result extraction | | nowsecure.nl | Cloudflare | [JSON](proof/nowsecureevidence.json) | Manual return path validated |

See [proof/README.md](proof/README.md) for methodology and raw outputs.

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Quick Start

Option A — Prebuilt binaries

Download the latest release assets from GitHub Releases and run one of:

• cortex-scout-mcp — MCP stdio server (recommended for VS Code / Cursor / Claude Desktop)
• cortex-scout — optional HTTP server (default port 5000; override via --port, PORT, or CORTEX_SCOUT_PORT)

Health check (HTTP server):

./cortex-scout --port 5000
curl http://localhost:5000/health

Option B — Build from source

Install protoc first. lance-encoding uses Protocol Buffers during the release build, so protoc must be on your PATH.

• macOS: brew install protobuf
• Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt-get install -y protobuf-compiler
• Fedora: sudo dnf install -y protobuf-compiler

Basic build (search, scrape, deep research, memory):

git clone https://github.com/cortex-works/cortex-scout.git
cd cortex-scout
cargo build --release --manifest-path mcp-server/Cargo.toml --bin cortex-scout-mcp

This works from the repository root because the manifest path is explicit.

Full build (includes hitl_web_fetch / visible-browser HITL):

cargo build --release --manifest-path mcp-server/Cargo.toml --all-features --bin cortex-scout-mcp

If you also want the optional HTTP server binary, build it explicitly with cargo build --release --bin cortex-scout.

Local MCP smoke test:

python3 publish/ci/smoke_mcp.py

This runs a newline-delimited JSON-RPC stdio session against the local cortex-scout-mcp binary and exercises the main public tools with safe example inputs.

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MCP Integration (VS Code / Cursor / Claude Desktop)

Add a server entry to your MCP config.

VS Code (mcp.json — global, or settings.json under mcp.servers):

The hard timeout guard vars below are required in MCP configs. They are the safety rail that prevents a bad page, stalled browser launch, or stuck scrape stage from holding the whole MCP session open indefinitely.

// mcp.json (global): top-level key is "servers"
// settings.json (workspace): use "mcp.servers" instead
{
  "servers": {
    "cortex-scout": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "env",
      "args": [
        "RUST_LOG=warn",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS=90",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SCRAPE_URL=90",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SEARCH_STRUCTURED=120",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_VISUAL_SCOUT=45",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_BROWSER_LAUNCH_TIMEOUT_SECS=12",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_BROWSER_TAB_PROBE_TIMEOUT_SECS=4",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS=20",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_CDP_INITIAL_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_CDP_RETRY_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_FORCED_CDP_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_NATIVE_CDP_FALLBACK=25",
        "SEARCH_ENGINES=google,bing,duckduckgo,brave",
        "LANCEDB_URI=/YOUR_PATH/cortex-scout/lancedb",
        "HTTP_TIMEOUT_SECS=30",
        "MAX_CONTENT_CHARS=10000",
        "/YOUR_PATH/cortex-scout/mcp-server/target/release/cortex-scout-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Default behavior is direct/no-proxy. Add IP_LIST_PATH and PROXY_SOURCE_PATH only if you want proxy tools available. If you want proxy_control available without routing normal traffic through proxies, point IP_LIST_PATH at an empty ip.txt file and let agents populate it on demand.

> Important: Always use RUST_LOG=warn, not info. At info level, the server emits hundreds of log lines per request to stderr, which can confuse MCP clients that monitor stderr.

> Windows: Windows has no env command. Use the command+env object format instead — see [docs/IDESETUP.md](docs/IDESETUP.md).

With deep research (LLM synthesis via OpenRouter / any OpenAI-compatible API):

{
  "servers": {
    "cortex-scout": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "env",
      "args": [
        "RUST_LOG=warn",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS=90",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SCRAPE_URL=90",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SEARCH_STRUCTURED=120",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_VISUAL_SCOUT=45",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_BROWSER_LAUNCH_TIMEOUT_SECS=12",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_BROWSER_TAB_PROBE_TIMEOUT_SECS=4",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS=20",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_CDP_INITIAL_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_CDP_RETRY_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_FORCED_CDP_ATTEMPT=25",
        "CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_NATIVE_CDP_FALLBACK=25",
        "SEARCH_ENGINES=google,bing,duckduckgo,brave",
        "LANCEDB_URI=/YOUR_PATH/cortex-scout/lancedb",
        "HTTP_TIMEOUT_SECS=30",
        "MAX_CONTENT_CHARS=10000",
        "OPENAI_BASE_URL=https://openrouter.ai/api/v1",
        "OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-or-v1-...",
        "DEEP_RESEARCH_LLM_MODEL=moonshotai/kimi-k2.5",
        "DEEP_RESEARCH_ENABLED=1",
        "DEEP_RESEARCH_SYNTHESIS=1",
        "DEEP_RESEARCH_SYNTHESIS_MAX_TOKENS=4096",
        "/YOUR_PATH/cortex-scout/mcp-server/target/release/cortex-scout-mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

Multi-IDE guide: [docs/IDESETUP.md](docs/IDESETUP.md)

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Configuration (cortex-scout.json)

Create cortex-scout.json in the same directory as the binary (or repository root). All fields are optional; environment variables act as fallback.

{
  "deep_research": {
    "enabled": true,
    "llm_base_url": "http://localhost:1234/v1",
    "llm_api_key": "",
    "llm_model": "lfm2-2.6b",
    "synthesis_enabled": true,
    "synthesis_max_sources": 3,
    "synthesis_max_chars_per_source": 800,
    "synthesis_max_tokens": 1024
  }
}

---

Key Environment Variables

Core

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | RUST_LOG | warn | Log level. Keep warn for MCP stdio — info floods stderr and confuses MCP clients | | HTTP_TIMEOUT_SECS | 30 | Per-request read timeout (seconds) | | HTTP_CONNECT_TIMEOUT_SECS | 10 | TCP connect timeout (seconds) | | OUTBOUND_LIMIT | 16 | Max concurrent outbound HTTP connections | | MAX_CONTENT_CHARS | 10000 | Max characters returned per scraped page | | CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS | tool-specific | Hard upper bound for every MCP/HTTP tool call. When exceeded, Cortex Scout cancels the tool and returns a structured timeout response instead of hanging | | CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_ | unset | Per-tool override, for example CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_SCRAPE_URL=90 or CORTEX_SCOUT_TOOL_TIMEOUT_SECS_VISUAL_SCOUT=20 | | CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS | stage-specific | Shared timeout for heavy scrape stages such as CDP fetch, native scrape, semantic shaving, and history logging | | CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_ | unset | Per-stage override, for example CORTEX_SCOUT_SCRAPE_STAGE_TIMEOUT_SECS_CDP_INITIAL_ATTEMPT=30 |

Browser / Anti-bot

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | CHROME_EXECUTABLE | auto-detected | Override path to Chromium/Chrome/Brave binary | | SEARCH_CDP_FALLBACK | true | Retry search engine fetches via native Chromium CDP when blocked | | SEARCH_TIER2_NON_ROBOT | unset | Set 1 to allow hitl_web_fetch as last-resort search escalation | | MAX_LINKS | 100 | Max links followed per page crawl |

Search

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | SEARCH_ENGINES | google,bing,duckduckgo,brave | Active engines (comma-separated) | | SEARCH_MAX_ENGINES_PER_QUERY | 3 | Max engines queried per search before health-based rotation picks the next set | | SEARCH_MAX_RESULTS_PER_ENGINE | 10 | Results per engine before merge/dedup | | SEARCH_ENGINE_STAGGER_MS | 125 | Delay between per-engine launches to reduce bursty anti-bot triggers | | SEARCH_COMMUNITY_TRIGGER_RESULTS | 4 | Only run Reddit/HN community expansion when primary search returns fewer than this many results | | SEARCH_SHARED_CACHE | true | Share successful search results across concurrent Cortex Scout processes on the same host | | SEARCH_SHARED_CACHE_TTL_SECS | 300 | TTL for the shared cross-process search cache | | SEARCH_HOST_MIN_GAP_MS | engine-tuned | Cross-process minimum spacing between search-engine requests from the same host IP | | SEARCH_HOST_MAX_GAP_MS | engine-tuned | Cross-process maximum spacing/jitter between search-engine requests from the same host IP | | SCRAPE_HOST_MIN_GAP_MS | 900 | Cross-process minimum spacing between scrape requests to the same host | | SCRAPE_HOST_MAX_GAP_MS | 1800 | Cross-process maximum spacing/jitter between scrape requests to the same host | | CORTEX_SCOUT_HOST_GUARD_DISABLED | false | Set 1 only if you explicitly want to disable shared host-level throttling |

Proxy

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | IP_LIST_PATH | — | Optional path to ip.txt (one proxy per line: http://, socks5://). Leave unset to disable proxy support entirely, or point at an empty file to keep proxy tools available but inactive by default | | PROXY_SOURCE_PATH | — | Optional path to proxy_source.json (used by proxy_control grab) |

Semantic Memory (LanceDB)

| Variable | Default | Description | |----------|---------|-------------| | LANCEDB_URI | — | Directory path for persistent research memory. Omit to disable | | CORTEX_SCOUT_MEMORY_DISABLED | 0 | Set 1 to disable memory even when LANCEDB_URI is set | | MODEL2VEC_MODEL | built-in | HuggingFace model ID or local path for embedding (e.g. minishlab/potion-base-8M) |

Deep Research

| Variable | Default | Description | |-----

…

Source & license

This open-source MCP server is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: cortex-works
• Source: cortex-works/cortex-scout
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.