Rowser

Rowser is an early independent Rust browser engine project. The target is a Rust-native browser engine and shell designed for performance, safety, inspectability, and automation. It must not use Chromium, WebKit, or Gecko as the page engine. Chromium is allowed only as a benchmark/comparison oracle for named corpora and fixtures.

The current code is still an early scaffold. rowser-browser can load local or HTTP(S) HTML, build a DOM-like tree, apply a small CSS subset, render terminal text, emit deterministic display-list/raster artifacts, run a tiny JavaScript DOM mutation subset, and drive a narrow local CLI shell with links, forms, history, storage, cookies, focus, and basic click/default-action behavior. That is useful evidence, but it is not a modern browser, not Chromium-compatible, and not a full desktop product.

Blackium Starium✴ is now positioned as the fast text/index/extraction mode of the browser engine: fetch or ingest static HTML, extract plaintext, build a custom local inverted index, and query/render search results quickly. The search path intentionally avoids full page rendering unless a rendered extraction lane is explicitly selected.

For the browser-first strategy, see docs/BROWSER_ENGINE_STRATEGY.md. For the broader search/browser execution plans, see docs/COMPETITOR_ROADMAP.md, docs/PROGRAM_PLAN.md, and docs/ARCHITECTURE.md. The requirement-to-gate audit matrix lives in docs/REQUIREMENTS_TRACEABILITY.md. The proof-artifact map lives in docs/EVIDENCE_REGISTRY.md. Security and privacy gates are tracked in docs/SECURITY_PRIVACY_PLAN.md; operations and reliability gates are tracked in docs/OPERATIONS_RELIABILITY_PLAN.md; browser platform completeness gates are tracked in docs/PLATFORM_COMPLETENESS_PLAN.md; paint/raster/compositor gates are tracked in docs/BROWSER_RENDERING_COMPOSITOR_PLAN.md; performance-first browser architecture and benchmark sequencing are tracked in docs/PERFORMANT_RUST_BROWSER_PLAN.md. The current code is an early browser engine scaffold plus a fast static-text search mode, not the complete browser product.

Current implementation focus after the browser-first reframing: make Stage 1 Document Browser M1 credible before chasing broad Chromium comparisons. That means tightening the loading -> DOM -> style -> layout -> paint/display-list -> raster -> app/shell pipeline, adding document-page fixtures with visible-text and screenshot gates, and treating search as the fast extraction/indexing lane. Chromium remains useful as a late comparison oracle for named corpora, not the day-to-day benchmark target while the browser is still becoming functional.

Play With The Rust Browser Now

rowser-browser is a Rust browser scaffold for local fixtures and small HTML experiments. It is not Chromium-compatible yet: there is no general JavaScript VM, full Web API surface, full CSS/layout engine, browser-grade raster/ compositor, sandbox, native GUI chrome, devtools, platform accessibility tree, or modern site compatibility, profile-backed persistent storage, IndexedDB, Cache API, or quota/private mode. The engine now has a reusable BrowserApp state model for tabs, navigation, viewport scrolling, input actions, and presentable RGBA frames. rowser-browser app exposes that state model as a scriptable and interactive/stdin app surface with JSON cookie/localStorage profile files, a JSON app profile for visit history/bookmarks, app-level find/find-next state, visible viewport text, page PNG frame output, and a deterministic browser-window PNG with tab/location/status chrome. A feature-gated rowser-browser window command can now present that same frame in a native CPU-backed window and route mouse, wheel, and basic keyboard input through BrowserApp. It also has a narrow location-entry mode with live location-bar text, Enter-to-open, Escape cancel, Backspace edit, resize-aware viewport updates, printable-key routing into focused text controls. The product browser chrome still needs to be built.

cargo build --release --bins

# Browse a checked-in fixture in the terminal shell.
./target/release/rowser-browser browse bench/browser-fixtures/static-text.html \
  --cmd "links" \
  --cmd "render"

# Drive the browser-app state boundary and write the final viewport frame.
./target/release/rowser-browser app bench/browser-fixtures/static-text.html \
  --cmd "new-tab max-width-layout.html" \
  --cookie-jar ./profile/cookies.json \
  --local-storage ./profile/local-storage.json \
  --profile ./profile/app-profile.json \
  --output ./app-frame.png \
  --window-output ./app-window.png \
  --json

# Keep the browser-app state alive while feeding commands from stdin.
printf 'bookmark\nfind static\nbookmarks\nprofile-history\nquit\n' | \
  ./target/release/rowser-browser app ./page.html --stdin --output ./app-frame.png

# Route a browser-window pixel click through simple chrome/page hit testing.
./target/release/rowser-browser app ./page.html \
  --cmd "window-click 5 50" \
  --window-output ./app-window.png

# Open the feature-gated native Rust window shell.
cargo run --release --features native-window --bin rowser-browser -- \
  window bench/browser-fixtures/static-text.html

# Try the narrow form helpers against a local page containing a simple form.
./target/release/rowser-browser form-url ./path/to/form.html --field q=rust
./target/release/rowser-browser submit ./path/to/form.html --field q=rust --json

# Dispatch a supported click handler, then render the session view.
./target/release/rowser-browser browse bench/browser-fixtures/click-event.html \
  --cmd "click #go" \
  --cmd "render"

# Verify fixtures, run the local WPT-subset scaffold, and measure fixture perf.
./target/release/rowser-browser verify bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json --json
./target/release/rowser-browser wpt bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json \
  --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl \
  --json
./target/release/rowser-bench browser-perf \
  --manifest bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json \
  --iterations 50 \
  --chromium-baseline \
  --json

Those gates prove only the checked-in fixture subset and local WPT scaffold. They are useful regression checks, not evidence of upstream WPT coverage, modern-site compatibility, or Chromium parity.

Search Mode Commands

The daemon needs an index before it can answer local queries. The normal path is still crawl or ingest pages first, then query the hot local index. For full-web discovery during development, serve can also use a third-party search provider as a fallback and background-crawl those returned URLs into the local index. The index command is only for a directory of already-saved .html, .htm, .xhtml, or .txt files.

cargo build --release --bins

./target/release/rowser-search crawl https://example.com \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --max-pages 1000 \
  --max-depth 4 \
  --concurrency 64 \
  --max-fetching-per-host 4

./target/release/rowser-searchd --index .rowser-index --preload aggressive

In another terminal:

./target/release/rowser-search search "your query" --index .rowser-index --limit 20

The query parser supports a small first pass of Google-style operators on the same fast index path:

./target/release/rowser-search search "rust site:example.com -deprecated" --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search search "guide site:example.com/docs filetype:html" --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search search '"exact phrase" site:example.com -"old phrase"' --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search search "release notes lang:en after:2025-01-01 before:2025-12-31" --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search search "+fast rust OR browser -slow" --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search suggest "bru" --index .rowser-index --limit 10
./target/release/rowser-search spell "exampel" --index .rowser-index --limit 5

Useful sanity checks after a crawl:

./target/release/rowser-search stats --index .rowser-index
./target/release/rowser-search render 0 --index .rowser-index

Or start the local search UI/API:

./target/release/rowser-search serve --index .rowser-index --addr 127.0.0.1:8765

To enable full-web fallback with Brave Search, use the raw Search plan/API key instead of the Answers product:

BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY=... \
./target/release/rowser-search serve --index .rowser-index --addr 127.0.0.1:8765

Local results are returned first. If the local index has fewer than the requested result count, the Brave provider returns web results, stores them in .rowser-index/web-cache.jsonl, queues the top URLs for a polite background crawl, rebuilds the index from .rowser-index/crawl-docs.jsonl, and hot-reloads the local provider without restarting the server. Useful controls:

• rowser_WEB_FALLBACK=0 disables third-party search.
• rowser_WEB_CACHE_PATH=/path/to/web-cache.jsonl changes the provider cache.
• rowser_WEB_FALLBACK_COUNT=20 caps third-party results per query.
• rowser_BACKGROUND_CRAWL=0 disables background crawl/index.
• rowser_BACKGROUND_CRAWL_TOP_N=5 controls how many web result URLs are queued.
• rowser_BACKGROUND_CRAWL_MAX_PAGES=5 controls the per-batch crawl budget.
• rowser_BACKGROUND_CRAWL_MAX_DEPTH=0 keeps the worker to returned result URLs.

Then open http://127.0.0.1:8765. The UI includes compact filters for site:, filetype:, lang:, after:, and before:; they compile to the same hot query path as the CLI operators. API endpoints:

• /crawl opens a human-readable crawl status page with host-level frontier stats
• /bench opens the latest saved benchmark report for the served index
• /render?id=0 opens a human-readable full-text render page
• /api/search?q=terms&limit=20
• /api/suggest?q=pre&limit=10
• /api/spell?q=typo&limit=5
• /api/render?id=0
• /api/stats
• /api/crawl-status
• /api/bench-status

The current browser engine scaffold does not use Chromium/WebKit/Gecko. It can load local or HTTP(S) HTML, build a DOM, apply simple display, text-align, white-space: pre, max-width, and horizontal auto-margin CSS, run block text, preformatted text, list-marker, nested-list indentation, and constrained document-column layout, apply small blockquote/definition-list indentation defaults, flow simple table cells across rows with basic column padding, render common input/select/textarea controls as inline widgets, write supported form edits into the live DOM with narrow input/change listener dispatch, expose a retained paint-backed layout-tree snapshot for supported element bounds and parent/child links, dispatch narrow focus/blur plus bubbling focusin/focusout listeners for supported form focus transitions, expose document.activeElement for that focus path, dispatch narrow keydown/keyup events with event.type/event.key/event.target for focused text edits and honor keydown preventDefault() before mutating text, dispatch narrow beforeinput events with event.inputType/event.data before supported text insertion and Backspace deletion while honoring preventDefault(), dispatch narrow pointerdown/mousedown/pointerup/mouseup events around coordinate clicks with coordinate and pointer readback before the generated click/default-action path, dispatch narrow form submit/reset events before supported default navigation/reset while honoring preventDefault(), expose event.currentTarget and honor stopPropagation() and stopImmediatePropagation() for supported bubbling events, parse narrow capture and once listener options, remove supported listeners by named callable handler plus capture, dispatch supported events in capture/target/bubble order with event.eventPhase, route narrow delegated document listeners through the DOM document node, keep supported window listeners on a distinct top-level event target with limited event.currentTarget/this identity readback, keep a live per-entry DOM/runtime for repeated supported clicks and event listeners, emit a deterministic display list, resolve anchor links, discover static subresources, extract static forms, construct GET submission URLs, submit GET forms through a small session history, carry session cookies across HTTP navigations, follow bounded HTTP redirects while carrying redirect-set cookies into the next hop, fetch/cache discovered static resources, apply fetched stylesheets to text layout, execute a tiny inline JavaScript subset for document title/text mutations plus createElement/createTextNode/appendChild, tree mutation methods, DOM traversal properties, insertion convenience methods, DocumentFragment insertion, Element.matches/Element.closest, innerHTML, form-control DOM properties, location readback properties, setAttribute/getAttribute plus tiny element.classList and element.style mutations over the supported CSS selector/property subset, DOM query collections, plus origin-scoped localStorage and in-memory sessionStorage, dispatch document/window lifecycle listeners, drain a deterministic setTimeout task queue, fetch external scripts into that same tiny runtime, dispatch inline onclick and addEventListener("click", ...) handlers for a first click path, let shell click <selector> follow anchor hrefs as a narrow default action, route shell coordinate clicks through display-list hit testing into that same supported event/default-action navigation path, remember text-like form field values on the current BrowserSession entry for later GET form submission, remember validated select option choices for later submission, track a focused form control for browse shell focus/type/backspace/ clear-input/enter/space commands, cycle focus with tab/shift-tab, search rendered text with find/find-next, reload the current session entry without pushing new history, manage multiple local shell tabs, report the current browse viewport as RGBA frame metadata, write the final visible browse viewport as a PNG, and render terminal text plus deterministic raster artifacts:

./target/release/rowser-browser render ./page.html --width 100
./target/release/rowser-browser render ./page.html --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser render-styled ./page.html --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser render-scripted ./page.html --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser render-images ./page.html --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser raster ./page.html --viewport-width 80 --viewport-height 24 --viewport-y 20 --output viewport.pgm
./target/release/rowser-browser raster-file ./page.html --scroll-y 20 --viewport-width 80 --viewport-height 24 --json
./target/release/rowser-browser screenshot-file ./page.html --output ./page.png --json
./target/release/rowser-browser hit-test ./page.html --x 12 --y 4 --json
./target/release/rowser-browser layer-tree ./page.html --json
./target/release/rowser-browser layout-tree ./page.html --json
./target/release/rowser-browser viewport ./page.html --viewport-width 80 --viewport-height 24 --viewport-y 20 --previous-x 0 --previous-y 0 --previous-width 80 --previous-height 24 --json
./target/release/rowser-browser viewport-frame ./page.html --viewport-width 80 --viewport-height 24 --viewport-y 20 --previous-x 0 --previous-y 0 --previous-width 80 --previous-height 24 --output ./viewport.png --json
./target/release/rowser-browser accessibility-tree ./page.html --json
./target/release/rowser-browser click ./page.html "#go" --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser click-at ./page.html 0 0 --display-list
./target/release/rowser-browser click-at ./page.html 0 0 --viewport-y 12 --json
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "links" --cmd "link 0" --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "click #go" --cmd "scroll 12" --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "focus input[name=q]" --cmd "type rust browser" --cmd "submit 0"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "reload" --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "new-tab ./other.html" --cmd "tabs"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "down 20" --screenshot-output ./viewport.png --json
./target/release/rowser-browser app ./page.html --cmd "click #go" --cmd "down 20" --output ./app-frame.png --json
./target/release/rowser-browser render https://example.com --json
./target/release/rowser-browser resources ./page.html
./target/release/rowser-browser fetch-resources ./page.html
./target/release/rowser-browser session ./first.html ./second.html --back 1
./target/release/rowser-browser form-url ./path/to/form.html --field q=rust
./target/release/rowser-browser submit ./path/to/form.html --field q=rust --json
./target/release/rowser-browser verify bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json
./target/release/rowser-browser verify bench/document-pages/manifest.json --json
./target/release/rowser-browser compare-chromium bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json --json
./target/release/rowser-browser wpt bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl --json
./target/release/rowser-browser capabilities
./target/release/rowser-browser coverage --json --require static-html-parse --require display-list --require display-list-hit-testing --require layer-tree-snapshot --require retained-layout-tree --require viewport-raster-culling --require browser-viewport-layout-state --require browser-viewport-invalidation --require browser-viewport-frame-surface --require browser-app-state-surface --require browser-app-cli-surface --require browser-app-interactive-shell --require browser-app-visible-viewport --require browser-app-profile-history-bookmarks --require browser-app-find-text --require browser-app-window-frame --require browser-app-window-hit-testing --require browser-native-window-shell --require browser-native-window-location-input --require rgba-screenshot-artifact --require stage1-document-page-corpus --require static-accessibility-tree --require browser-shell-cli --require browser-shell-visual-frame --require browser-shell-tabs --require browser-shell-relative-open --require browser-shell-location-command --require browser-shell-cookie-inspection --require browser-shell-clear-cookies --require browser-shell-cookie-jar-file --require browser-shell-local-storage-file --require browser-shell-local-storage-inspection --require browser-shell-session-storage-inspection --require browser-shell-clear-local-storage --require browser-shell-clear-session-storage --require http-redirect-navigation --require browser-shell-link-activation --require browser-session-reload --require browser-shell-reload --require browser-shell-anchor-click-default --require browser-shell-fragment-navigation --require browser-shell-coordinate-click --require browser-cli-click-at-viewport-offset --require css-max-width-auto-margin-layout --require browser-shell-wheel-events --require browser-shell-find-text --require browser-shell-form-fill-state --require browser-session-select-form-state --require browser-shell-select-form-choice --require browser-session-checkable-form-state --require browser-shell-checkable-form-toggle --require browser-session-focused-form-control --require browser-session-focus-traversal --require browser-shell-focused-text-input --require browser-shell-focus-traversal --require browser-session-focused-text-edit --require browser-shell-focused-text-edit --require browser-session-focused-form-submit --require browser-shell-enter-submit --require browser-session-urlencoded-post-form-submit --require browser-session-form-submit-button-click-default --require browser-session-submitter-action-method-overrides --require browser-session-form-reset-click-default --require browser-session-pointer-events --require browser-session-mouse-events --require external-script-render --require dom-tree-mutation --require dom-node-traversal --require dom-insertion-methods --require document-fragment --require dom-selector-methods --require dom-inner-html-mutation --require dom-form-control-properties --require dom-location-readback --require dom-set-attribute --require dom-get-attribute --require dom-style-property-mutation --require dom-class-list-mutation --require dom-query-collections --require local-storage-api --require session-storage-api --require timer-task-queue --require document-lifecycle-events --require inline-onclick-event --require event-listener-click --require complex-query-selector --require complex-click-selector --require compound-css-selectors --require attribute-css-selectors --require hidden-attribute --require responsive-image-selection --require network-image-render --min-implemented-ratio 0.40
./target/release/rowser-bench browser-perf --manifest bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json --iterations 50 --chromium-baseline --json
./target/release/rowser-bench browser-compat --manifest bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl --min-pass-rate 1 --max-unexpected-failures 0 --max-flakes 0 --json
./target/release/rowser-bench audit --claim combined --json
./target/release/rowser-bench traceability --json
./target/release/rowser-bench evidence --json
./target/release/rowser-bench readiness

Fixture manifests are JSON files whose paths are resolved relative to the manifest file. Each fixture can assert the page title, terminal text, and deterministic display-list commands. compare-chromium runs the same fixtures through headless Chromium and compares normalized title/text output:

{
  "fixtures": [{
    "name": "static wrap smoke",
    "path": "page.html",
    "width": 40,
    "expected_title": "Page",
    "expected_text": "visible text",
    "expected_display_list": [
      {"command": "text", "x": 0, "y": 0, "text": "visible text"}
    ],
    "expected_screenshot_hash": "optional RGBA screenshot hash"
  }]
}

render-images is the image-aware local render path. It navigates to a local or HTTP(S) page, discovers image resources, fetches them with the same --resource-max-bytes cap used by resource fetches, decodes the currently supported SVG/PNG/data-URL image subset, and rerenders with decoded image metadata and pixels available to the display-list/raster path:

./target/release/rowser-browser render-images ./page.html \
  --width 100 \
  --resource-max-bytes 1048576 \
  --display-list

./target/release/rowser-browser render-images ./page.html --json

That command is local image-rendering scaffold evidence for the current supported subset. It does not imply full image-format coverage, browser compositor correctness, upstream WPT coverage, or Chromium parity.

raster and raster-file can rasterize a fixed terminal/text viewport window from whole-document scroll offsets. Use --viewport-x / --viewport-y (also accepted as --scroll-x / --scroll-y) for those offsets and --viewport-width / --viewport-height for the output window. This culls commands outside the window for deterministic CPU raster output; it is not browser-accurate scrolling, async scroll handling, or compositor tiling. The text viewport report also clamps requested shell offsets to the current document extents and reports max scroll offsets plus the retained layout boxes visible in that window. That is useful browser-shell state for the supported document path; it is not CSS overflow, scroll anchoring, async compositor scrolling, or full viewport semantics. viewport exposes the same document-viewport state directly, including requested and clamped viewport coordinates, scroll delta, visible boxes, and dirty regions between a previous and current viewport. The dirty regions are cell-space repaint accounting for the current whole-document path, not a compositor damage tracker or GPU tile invalidation model. viewport-frame combines that clamped viewport state with the deterministic RGBA raster path and maps dirty cell regions to dirty pixel rectangles that a future native shell can present. It is still CPU presentation scaffold evidence, not an OS window, GPU swapchain, or compositor. The reusable Rust BrowserApp API builds on the same frame-surface contract and owns browser-level state for tabs, navigation, scroll offsets, click/focus/ typing actions, and full-versus-partial repaint decisions. It is the intended state boundary for the upcoming native window shell. The rowser-browser app command now drives that boundary directly, can run --cmd scripts, can keep an interactive/stdin command stream alive across navigations and tabs, can load/save JSON cookie and localStorage files, can persist app-level visit history/bookmarks through --profile, can track find/find-next match state, can refresh a viewport PNG while printing the visible text viewport, and can compose a deterministic browser-window PNG with simple tab/location/status chrome plus narrow window-coordinate hit testing for future native shell backends. The feature-gated rowser-browser window command presents the same RGBA window frame through a native CPU framebuffer and routes mouse, wheel, and basic keyboard input through BrowserApp; it now includes narrow location entry and focused-control text routing, JSON app-profile visit-history/bookmark persistence, and small tab/bookmark shortcuts. It is still early shell evidence, not product-grade browser chrome, a full omnibox, autocomplete, search-provider integration, IME, clipboard, encrypted profile storage, sync, private browsing, downloads, settings, menus, or process isolation.

hit-test runs the local display-list hit-test scaffold against the current supported layout/display-list subset:

./target/release/rowser-browser hit-test ./page.html --x 12 --y 4 --json

It reports the topmost supported display-list command at the given terminal-cell coordinate. This is fixture/debug evidence, not proof of full input routing, scrolling, transforms, iframe routing, pointer-event semantics, text selection, or browser-grade hit-testing correctness. The browser-shell-coordinate-click feature gate is narrower still: CLI shell coordinate clicks may consume this hit-test result only to enter the supported generated pointerdown/mousedown/pointerup/mouseup/click-handler/default-action navigation path, not to prove full browser pointer routing, full PointerEvent semantics, or full MouseEvent semantics. The one-shot click-at/tap command also accepts --viewport-x/--viewport-y aliases (--scroll-x/--scroll-y) and translates the provided visible point to document coordinates before the same supported hit-test/default-action path. Shell scroll/down/up/left/right commands now dispatch a narrow document-level wheel event first, expose event.deltaX/event.deltaY to the tiny listener subset, rerender supported DOM mutations, and cancel the local viewport movement when a handler calls preventDefault(). This is CLI shell input evidence only; it is not browser-accurate scroll containers, CSS overflow, full WheelEvent semantics, compositor scrolling, or platform device input.

layer-tree emits a local layer-tree/debug snapshot derived from the current supported display-list/layout subset:

./target/release/rowser-browser layer-tree ./page.html --json

This is scaffold evidence for layer snapshot shape, bounds, paint-source grouping, and benchmarked layer-count/topology metrics in local fixtures. It is not proof of a compositor scheduler, GPU compositing, OS presentation, async scrolling, tile caching, transforms/clips correctness, iframe/OOPIF surfaces, or Chromium compositor parity.

layout-tree emits a retained layout-tree/debug snapshot for the current paint-backed element boxes:

./target/release/rowser-browser layout-tree ./page.html --json

This is scaffold evidence for supported element bounds, parent/child layout-box links, and command-to-box ownership. It is not full CSS layout, anonymous box generation, inline fragmentation, scrolling boxes, browser-accurate geometry, or a replacement for future layout/compositor architecture.

browse is the current early local CLI shell that makes the current static engine playable from a terminal. It wraps the supported BrowserSession subset: open <url-or-path>, location / url / where, cookies, local-storage / storage / localstorage, session-storage / sessionstorage, clear-cookies, clear-local-storage, clear-session-storage, tabs, new-tab <url-or-path>, switch-tab <index>, close-tab [index], back, forward, links, link <index>, follow text <label>, activate selector <selector>, reload / refresh, click <selector>, click-at <x> <y> / tap <x> <y>, submit <form-index> name=value, submit-get <form-index> name=value, submit-post <form-index> name=value, focus <selector>, tab, shift-tab, type <text>, backspace [count], clear-input, enter, space, toggle <form-index> <control-index>, choose <value>, select <form-index> <control-index> <value>, styles, scripts, images, scroll, left/right, top, bottom, history, and render for the current page in a fixed text viewport. The optional --cookie-jar <path> and --local-storage <path> flags load JSON state before the shell run and save the current cookie jar and origin-scoped localStorage after it finishes; sessionStorage stays in memory for the current BrowserSession. Shell tabs are local BrowserSession instances with independent history and viewport state; new tabs copy cookies and localStorage from the active tab at creation time, but this is not browser-grade shared profile synchronization, GUI tab chrome, session restore, or process isolation. open / go resolve relative targets against the current page source before navigating, which makes sibling paths, query strings, and fragments usable in scripted and interactive shells. links lists the current page's extracted anchor text, href, and resolved target; link / follow / activate navigate to a resolved target by zero-based index, exact link text, or a selector that resolves to an anchor. click <selector> dispatches the supported click-handler subset and, when the selected node resolves to an anchor with an href, navigates the resolved target through the same BrowserSession history as a narrow default action. Coordinate-click shell evidence routes a terminal-cell coordinate through display-list hit testing to that same supported generated pointerdown/mousedown/pointerup/mouseup/click/default-action path. The browser-shell-relative-open gate covers only current-page-relative shell open / go resolution; it is not omnibox search, URL autocomplete, tab UI, security UI, or full browser chrome. The browser-shell-location-command gate reports the current source, title, history position, and text viewport without changing page state; it is not a real address bar, omnibox, browser chrome, or tab UI. The browser-shell-cookie-inspection gate prints the current in-memory BrowserSession cookie jar without changing page state; it is not persistent profile storage, cookie settings UI, permissions, partitioning, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-clear-cookies gate clears that in-memory cookie jar without navigating or changing page state; it is not persistent profile clearing, storage partition clearing, settings UI, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-cookie-jar-file gate loads and saves that in-memory cookie state through a local JSON --cookie-jar file for rowser-browser browse; it is not encrypted profile storage, expiration persistence, partitioning, cookie settings UI, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-local-storage-file gate loads and saves origin-scoped localStorage through a local JSON --local-storage file; it is not IndexedDB, Cache API, quota management, private browsing, partitioning, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-local-storage-inspection gate prints current origin-scoped localStorage session entries without changing page state; it is not a devtools storage panel, IndexedDB, Cache API, quota management, partitioning, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-clear-local-storage gate clears current origin-scoped localStorage session state; it is not full site-data clearing, IndexedDB, Cache API, quota management, private browsing, partitioning, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-session-storage-inspection gate prints current in-memory origin-scoped sessionStorage entries without changing page state; it is not persistent profile storage, a devtools storage panel, IndexedDB, Cache API, quota management, partitioning, or browser chrome. The browser-shell-clear-session-storage gate clears current in-memory origin-scoped sessionStorage state without navigating; it is not full site-data clearing, persistent profiles, IndexedDB, Cache API, quota management, private browsing, partitioning, or browser chrome. The http-redirect-navigation gate covers bounded HTTP(S) redirects for document, form, and static resource loads, including redirect-set cookies and final session entry URLs; it is not full navigation lifecycle, mixed-content/referrer/CORS policy, HSTS, redirect UI, or browser-grade error pages. The browser-shell-fragment-navigation gate records rendered id and legacy anchor name targets and scrolls the CLI text viewport to a matching fragment after supported open/link/click navigation. It is not full CSS scroll behavior, :target styling, history scroll restoration, or browser UI. The browser-shell-form-fill-state gate covers only filled remembered values for text-like controls on the current BrowserSession entry being merged into a later GET form submission. It is not full interactive form state, validation, focus/input events, autofill, POST, or browser UI. The select form gates cover only single-select option metadata, enabled-option validation, focused choose <value>, and explicit select <form> <control> <value> commands feeding later GET or URL-encoded POST submission. They are not native select UI, multi-select, optgroup inheritance, input/change events, validation, keyboard events, or browser UI. The checkable form gates cover only checkbox/radio checked state remembered on a BrowserSession entry, explicit toggle <form> <control> and focused space commands, and narrow selector-click and label defaults for supported checkbox/radio controls. They are not full input/change event dispatch, full keyboard event dispatch, full label activation semantics, indeterminate checkboxes, custom controls, validation, or browser UI. The browser-session-required-form-validation gate blocks supported BrowserSession/CLI GET and URL-encoded POST submissions when enabled required text-like, select, checkbox, or radio controls are empty or unchecked, and honors form novalidate and submitter formnovalidate. It is not full constraint validation, validation UI, custom validity, invalid events, or broad browser form compatibility. The browser-session-type-value-validation gate blocks supported submit paths for non-empty email and URL controls with invalid values. It is not full HTML type validation, IDNA/email grammar, validation UI, or broad browser form compatibility. The browser-session-submitter-action-method-overrides gate honors submitter formaction and GET/POST formmethod overrides for supported BrowserSession/CLI submit-control click and focused-submit paths. It is not external form ownership, target/enctype/dialog handling, full event ordering, or broad browser form compatibility. The browser-session-focused-form-control and browser-shell-focused-text-input gates cover only selector focus, associated label focus/click, and typed text append into editable text-like controls in the local shell/session path. Focus traversal gates cycle forward/backward through named, enabled, fillable, select, checkable, and submit/reset action controls in rendered form order. The browser-session-focus-events gate adds narrow target focus/blur, bubbling focusin/focusout, and document.activeElement for those supported focus transitions. The focused text edit gates add Unicode-safe backward deletion and clearing for the active editable text-like control. The browser-session-keyboard-events gate adds narrow bubbling keydown/keyup dispatch for typed text and Backspace, event.type/event.key/event.target readback, and keydown preventDefault() blocking of the default text mutation. The browser-session-beforeinput-events gate adds narrow bubbling beforeinput dispatch for supported text insertion and Backspace deletion before live DOM/form mutation, exposes event.inputType/event.data, and honors preventDefault() by skipping the edit and following input event. The browser-session-pointer-events gate adds narrow bubbling pointerdown/pointerup dispatch around supported coordinate clicks before the existing click/default-action path, exposes coordinate and pointer readback, and forwards coordinate readback to the generated click event. The browser-session-mouse-events gate adds narrow bubbling mousedown and mouseup compatibility events around supported coordinate clicks, with coordinate and button readback, before the generated click event. The browser-shell-wheel-events gate adds narrow document-level wheel dispatch before local shell viewport scroll commands, with event.deltaX and event.deltaY readback plus preventDefault() cancellation of that shell viewport movement. It is not browser scroll-container behavior, compositor scrolling, or full WheelEvent/platform input semantics. The browser-session-event-target-propagation gate adds event.target/event.currentTarget readback across supported bubbling events and narrow stopPropagation() behavior that blocks ancestor listeners without suppressing later listeners on the same target. The browser-session-stop-immediate-propagation gate adds narrow stopImmediatePropagation() behavior that suppresses later same-target listeners and stops remaining propagation for supported session events. The browser-session-document-event-listeners gate lets document addEventListener handlers receive supported events through the DOM document node for delegated click, keyboard, form, input/change, and focusin/out paths. The browser-session-capture-event-listeners gate parses boolean and object capture listener options for supported session events, dispatches capture/target/bubble order, and exposes event.eventPhase. The browser-session-once-event-listeners gate parses object-form once listener options for supported session events and removes those listeners after their first invocation across repeated interactions. The browser-session-remove-event-listener gate supports narrow removeEventListener matching by resolved callable handler and capture option for supported session/lifecycle event lists. The browser-session-window-event-target gate keeps supported window listeners on a distinct top-level event target around the document path and adds limited event.currentTarget === window / this === window readback for that listener path. The browser-session-submit-reset-events gate adds narrow bubbling submit/reset handlers on supported forms before the default navigation/reset path, including preventDefault() cancellation and submit-handler mutations to supported live form values before submission. The focused form submit gates add the local enter path that submits focused fillable/select controls, activates focused submit controls, or resets focused reset controls using current remembered field state. They are not full keyboard event semantics, full DOM tab order, tabindex, relatedTarget, full InputEvent semantics, composition events, SubmitEvent.submitter, invalid events, requestSubmit semantics, broad function declaration parsing, exact browser listener identity, dispatch-time listener removal ordering, passive/signal listener options, composed paths, shadow DOM retargeting, the full Window API, global event handler attributes, custom elements, caret positioning, text selection, shortcuts, repeat state, IME, validation UI, autofill, platform text input, undo, or browser UI. The browser-shell-find-text gate covers only rendered text-line search and viewport scrolling in the local shell; it is not full browser find UI, highlighting, selection, match counting, or locale-aware search. The browser-session-reload and browser-shell-reload gates cover only reloading the current session entry target and replacing that entry without pushing new history. They are not full reload lifecycle, cache policy, POST replay UI, service worker handling, or BFCache policy. The browser-session-urlencoded-post-form-submit gate covers only a narrow application/x-www-form-urlencoded POST path through BrowserSession and the local CLI shell; it must not be used to claim multipart/file uploads, fetch/XHR, validation, full navigation lifecycle, browser UI, or broad browser compatibility. The browser-session-form-submit-button-click-default gate covers only supported submit/input/button click default actions that route through BrowserSession and the CLI shell for GET or URL-encoded POST forms. It is not full form event dispatch, validation, focus/input behavior, browser UI, or Chromium parity. The browser-session-form-reset-click-default gate covers only supported reset control click default actions that clear remembered text-like state for the owning form in BrowserSession and the CLI shell. It is not constraint validation, full form event dispatch, focus/input behavior, browser UI, or Chromium parity. Interactive use reads commands from stdin; scripted smoke runs can pass repeated --cmd arguments and then exit:

./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html
./target/release/rowser-browser browse \
  ./page.html \
  --cmd "links" \
  --cmd "link 0" \
  --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse \
  ./page.html \
  --cmd "click #go" \
  --cmd "click-at 0 0" \
  --cmd "scroll 12" \
  --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse \
  ./page.html \
  --cmd "reload" \
  --cmd "render"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse \
  ./page.html \
  --cmd "focus input[name=q]" \
  --cmd "type browser" \
  --cmd "tab" \
  --cmd "type notes" \
  --cmd "shift-tab" \
  --cmd "backspace 3" \
  --cmd "type ser" \
  --cmd "enter"
./target/release/rowser-browser browse ./page.html --cmd "focus input[type=checkbox]" --cmd "space"

This is a local CLI shell over the existing static renderer, not GUI browser chrome. Link activation and anchor-click default navigation are resolved-href session navigation, form fill state is remembered-value GET-submit scaffold only, select state is single-select option scaffold only, checkable state is checkbox/radio toggle, focused-space, and label scaffold only, fragment navigation is rendered-id/name text-viewport scrolling only, focused text traversal/input/editing/submission is tab/type/backspace/clear/ enter-command scaffold only, and find text is rendered-line viewport scrolling only, not full browser event/default-action semantics, full event-cancellation semantics, full pointer routing, full PointerEvent semantics, full MouseEvent semantics, full interactive form state, checkable form behavior beyond checkbox/radio state toggles, validation, keyboard events, text selection, IME, autofill, transformed/scrolling hit testing, SPA navigation, tab/process isolation, devtools/accessibility, browser UI, or Chromium parity. The browser-session-urlencoded-post-form-submit marker is explicitly scoped to URL-encoded POST submission in BrowserSession/CLI only, not broad form compatibility. The browser-session-form-submit-button-click-default marker is explicitly scoped to BrowserSession/CLI submit-control click default action, not full form events, validation, focus/input state, browser UI, or broad input compatibility. The browser-session-form-reset-click-default marker is explicitly scoped to BrowserSession/CLI reset-control click default action, not full form events, validation, focus/input state, browser UI, or broad input compatibility. The browser-session-required-form-validation marker is explicitly scoped to value-missing checks for supported required controls in BrowserSession/CLI submit paths, with form novalidate and submitter formnovalidate, not full constraint validation or validation UI. The browser-session-type-value-validation marker is explicitly scoped to non-empty email/URL value checks in BrowserSession/CLI submit paths, not full type validation or browser validation UI. The browser-session-submitter-action-method-overrides marker is explicitly scoped to submitter formaction and GET/POST formmethod overrides on supported BrowserSession/CLI submit-control paths, not full submitter semantics, external form ownership, target/enctype/dialog handling, or browser compatibility.

A minimal WPT-subset/compatibility scaffold lives in bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json with expectation notes in bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl. It reuses tiny local bench/browser-fixtures pages across HTML, DOM, CSS, images, and rendering subsystems; it is not a full upstream Web Platform Tests import, a WebDriver/testdriver runner, a reftest harness, or proof of Chromium parity.

Run the local scaffold directly with:

./target/release/rowser-browser wpt bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json \
  --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl \
  --json

To use the same scaffold as a strict local fixture-compatibility gate:

./target/release/rowser-bench browser-compat \
  --manifest bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json \
  --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl \
  --min-pass-rate 1 \
  --max-unexpected-failures 0 \
  --max-flakes 0 \
  --json

To surface that compatibility report in the local /bench status UI, save it beside the served index:

./target/release/rowser-bench browser-compat \
  --manifest bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json \
  --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl \
  --min-pass-rate 1 \
  --max-unexpected-failures 0 \
  --max-flakes 0 \
  --report-output .rowser-index/bench-status.json \
  --json

./target/release/rowser-search serve --index .rowser-index

Those commands currently assert only the local subset entries in the manifest and their expectation rows. Passing them means the local compatibility scaffold matches its checked-in expectations; it does not mean the browser passes upstream WPT, matches Chromium behavior, or supports the wider web platform. The next standards gates are imported upstream WPT slices with explicit expectations and skip manifests, WebDriver/testdriver and reftest coverage where the subset needs them, flake quarantine, and a pinned Chromium comparison for the same tests.

This is an engine skeleton, not a modern browser yet: no general JavaScript VM, full event loop, Web API surface, full CSS cascade, browser-accurate painting/raster, compositor, sandbox, persistent storage, media, canvas, accessibility tree, GUI browser chrome, tab/process isolation, devtools, or Chromium parity.

By default crawl stays on the seed URL's exact host. To follow links across the wider web, use --boundary any-domain with a strict --max-pages cap:

./target/release/rowser-search crawl https://example.com \
  --boundary any-domain \
  --max-pages 10000 \
  --index .rowser-index

For a larger crawl, put one seed URL per line in a file. Blank lines and lines starting with # are ignored:

./target/release/rowser-search crawl \
  --seed-file seeds.txt \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --max-pages 100000 \
  --max-depth 6

You can combine a positional seed URL with --seed-file. With the default --boundary same-host, links are followed when they stay on any seed host. Use --boundary any-domain only with a strict page cap.

You can also start from domains instead of full URLs. Bare domains default to https:// and are normalized to the root URL:

./target/release/rowser-search crawl \
  --domain example.com \
  --domain-file domains.txt \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --max-pages 100000

Domain files use the same one-entry-per-line format as seed files.

You can also import URLs from XML or XML.gz sitemaps. Sitemap indexes are followed recursively up to --max-sitemaps, and page URLs are capped by --max-sitemap-urls:

./target/release/rowser-search crawl \
  --sitemap https://example.com/sitemap.xml \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --max-pages 100000 \
  --max-sitemap-urls 100000

--sitemap can be repeated and can point at an HTTP(S) URL or a local sitemap file. To discover sitemap URLs advertised in seed-host robots.txt files, add --discover-sitemaps:

./target/release/rowser-search crawl https://example.com \
  --discover-sitemaps \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --max-pages 100000

Robots-discovered sitemap URLs share the same --max-sitemaps and --max-sitemap-urls caps as manual --sitemap input.

For refresh workflows, --recrawl-manifest reads JSON Lines records with url, domain, or sitemap fields. priority sorts due work, and recrawl_after gates future work until the timestamp is due. recrawl_after accepts RFC3339 timestamps or Unix seconds:

{"url":"https://example.com/page","priority":10}
{"domain":"example.org","recrawl_after":"2026-06-01T00:00:00Z"}
{"sitemap":"https://example.net/sitemap.xml"}

./target/release/rowser-search crawl \
  --recrawl-manifest recrawl.jsonl \
  --discover-sitemaps \
  --index .rowser-index

Future-dated recrawl records are skipped by default. Use --include-future-recrawls to replay every manifest entry regardless of recrawl_after. Due manifest entries requeue matching fetched URLs in the frontier, and repeated snapshot rows are resolved with the latest fetched document when the index is rebuilt.

To generate a recrawl manifest from persisted frontier state, use recrawl-plan. It selects fetched URLs whose last fetch is at least --interval-secs old, sorts older URLs first, and writes JSON Lines compatible with --recrawl-manifest:

./target/release/rowser-search recrawl-plan \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --interval-secs 604800 \
  --limit 10000 \
  --output recrawl.jsonl

To keep a single-machine index fresh, run the scheduler loop. Each round selects due fetched URLs from the frontier, recrawls the batch, rebuilds from the latest crawl snapshot, and prints a JSON status row with changed/unchanged counts:

./target/release/rowser-search recrawl-scheduler \
  --index .rowser-index \
  --interval-secs 604800 \
  --batch-size 1000 \
  --poll-secs 300

For a bounded development run, add --max-rounds 1. The current scheduler is a single-machine freshness loop; distributed scheduling, per-site change-rate policy, and incremental segment writes remain roadmap items.

During a crawl, .rowser-index/frontier.bin stores durable URL state and .rowser-index/crawl-docs.jsonl stores fetched documents before the final index is written. If a crawl is interrupted, run the same crawl command again and it will resume from those files.

The built index also writes .rowser-index/field_docs.bin, which preserves fielded metadata such as canonical URL, meta description, language, headings, anchor text, outbound links, content hash, extraction mode, and fetch time. Document metadata records canonical, exact-text, and shingled-simhash near-duplicate clusters, and search returns one result per cluster while keeping every document renderable by id or URL. Postings keep per-field term counts, so title, heading, anchor, meta, URL, and body matches can be weighted differently without duplicating the rendered text.

Meta robots noindex pages are skipped by default during index builds. Add --ignore-noindex to keep them. To filter very small pages in a crawl or local corpus, set --min-body-terms N; skipped noindex/thin counts are shown in stats and build output.

You can also index a saved local corpus:

cargo run --release --bin rowser-search -- index ./corpus --index .rowser-index
cargo run --release --bin rowser-searchd -- --index .rowser-index --preload aggressive
cargo run --release --bin rowser-search -- search "query text" --index .rowser-index --limit 20
cargo run --release --bin rowser-search -- render 0 --index .rowser-index
cargo run --release --bin rowser-search -- serve --index .rowser-index
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- smoke --json --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- eval --index .rowser-index --judgments bench/judgments.jsonl --require-ndcg 0.9 --require-recall 0.9 --max-unresolved 0 --json --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- search --index .rowser-index --queries bench/queries.txt --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- search --index .rowser-index --queries bench/queries.txt --chromium-baseline --require-speedup 10 --json --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- browser-perf --manifest bench/browser-fixtures/manifest.json --iterations 50 --chromium-baseline --json --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- browser-compat --manifest bench/wpt-subsets/manifest.json --expectations bench/wpt-subsets/expectations.jsonl --min-pass-rate 1 --max-unexpected-failures 0 --max-flakes 0 --json
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- gate --require-ndcg 0.9 --require-recall 0.9 --max-unresolved 0 --require-browser-feature static-html-parse --require-browser-feature display-list --require-browser-feature retained-layout-tree --require-browser-feature viewport-raster-culling --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-layout-state --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-invalidation --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-frame-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-state-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-cli-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-interactive-shell --require-browser-feature browser-app-visible-viewport --require-browser-feature browser-app-profile-history-bookmarks --require-browser-feature browser-app-find-text --require-browser-feature browser-app-window-frame --require-browser-feature browser-app-window-hit-testing --require-browser-feature browser-native-window-shell --require-browser-feature browser-native-window-location-input --require-browser-feature static-accessibility-tree --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cli --require-browser-feature browser-shell-relative-open --require-browser-feature browser-shell-location-command --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cookie-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-cookies --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cookie-jar-file --require-browser-feature browser-shell-local-storage-file --require-browser-feature browser-shell-local-storage-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-session-storage-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-local-storage --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-session-storage --require-browser-feature http-redirect-navigation --require-browser-feature browser-shell-link-activation --require-browser-feature browser-session-reload --require-browser-feature browser-shell-reload --require-browser-feature browser-shell-anchor-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-shell-fragment-navigation --require-browser-feature browser-shell-coordinate-click --require-browser-feature browser-cli-click-at-viewport-offset --require-browser-feature css-max-width-auto-margin-layout --require-browser-feature browser-shell-wheel-events --require-browser-feature browser-shell-find-text --require-browser-feature browser-shell-form-fill-state --require-browser-feature browser-session-select-form-state --require-browser-feature browser-shell-select-form-choice --require-browser-feature browser-session-checkable-form-state --require-browser-feature browser-shell-checkable-form-toggle --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-form-control --require-browser-feature browser-session-focus-traversal --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focused-text-input --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focus-traversal --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-text-edit --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focused-text-edit --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-form-submit --require-browser-feature browser-shell-enter-submit --require-browser-feature browser-session-urlencoded-post-form-submit --require-browser-feature browser-session-form-submit-button-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-session-submitter-action-method-overrides --require-browser-feature browser-session-form-reset-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-session-pointer-events --require-browser-feature browser-session-mouse-events --require-browser-feature inline-script-dom-text --require-browser-feature inline-script-dom-create --require-browser-feature dom-tree-mutation --require-browser-feature dom-node-traversal --require-browser-feature dom-insertion-methods --require-browser-feature document-fragment --require-browser-feature dom-selector-methods --require-browser-feature dom-inner-html-mutation --require-browser-feature dom-form-control-properties --require-browser-feature dom-location-readback --require-browser-feature dom-set-attribute --require-browser-feature dom-get-attribute --require-browser-feature local-storage-api --require-browser-feature session-storage-api --require-browser-feature timer-task-queue --require-browser-feature document-lifecycle-events --require-browser-feature external-script-render --require-browser-feature inline-onclick-event --require-browser-feature event-listener-click --min-browser-implemented-ratio 0.4 --max-browser-missing 20 --browser-compat --browser-compat-min-pass-rate 1 --browser-compat-max-unexpected-failures 0 --browser-compat-max-flakes 0 --json --save-report
cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- readiness --json

The browser performance harness reports fixture render/raster latency plus local DOM, layout, paint, raster, and scalar layer-tree shape metrics for the supported fixture subset only. With --chromium-baseline, it also runs a headless Chromium iframe fixture baseline, inlines local fixture scripts for deterministic --dump-dom timing, steps fixtures through Chromium virtual-time callbacks so timer and click tasks can settle, reports Chromium p50/p95/p99, records Rust-vs-Chromium p95 speedup, and hashes/checks Chromium text output against manifest expectations. It can gate those metrics with --min-chromium-p95-speedup, --max-chromium-text-mismatches, --max-layer-metrics-p95-us, --min-total-layers, --min-total-image-layers, --max-layer-count, and --max-image-layer-count.

The headline path is the daemon: it keeps the lexicon, document metadata, selected postings, and text mmap hot so repeated searches avoid process startup and index-open costs.

rowser-bench smoke builds the deterministic fixture corpus in bench/fixtures/corpus, searches the first query in bench/queries.txt, renders the top result, and emits an in-process benchmark report. It is the quickest local proof that indexing, search, render, and benchmarking are wired together.

Search benchmark reports include p50/p95/p99 latency, throughput, Rust/Chrome/OS/ hardware metadata, corpus hash, and index hash. --require-speedup 10 turns the Chromium comparison into an acceptance gate and exits non-zero if the Rust path does not beat the headless Chromium JavaScript baseline by at least 10x at p95. Add --save-report to persist .rowser-index/bench-status.json; the local server exposes that report at /bench and /api/bench-status.

rowser-bench gate is the one-command local development acceptance check. It builds the fixture corpus, searches and renders, runs relevance judgments, enforces browser feature-fixture coverage, and can optionally launch Chrome for the p95 search-speed gate and curated static browser fixture parity:

cargo run --release --bin rowser-bench -- gate --chromium-search-baseline --require-speedup 10 --browser-chromium-parity --require-ndcg 0.9 --require-recall 0.9 --max-unresolved 0 --require-browser-feature static-html-parse --require-browser-feature display-list --require-browser-feature retained-layout-tree --require-browser-feature viewport-raster-culling --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-layout-state --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-invalidation --require-browser-feature browser-viewport-frame-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-state-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-cli-surface --require-browser-feature browser-app-interactive-shell --require-browser-feature browser-app-visible-viewport --require-browser-feature browser-app-profile-history-bookmarks --require-browser-feature browser-app-find-text --require-browser-feature browser-app-window-frame --require-browser-feature browser-app-window-hit-testing --require-browser-feature browser-native-window-shell --require-browser-feature browser-native-window-location-input --require-browser-feature static-accessibility-tree --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cli --require-browser-feature browser-shell-relative-open --require-browser-feature browser-shell-location-command --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cookie-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-cookies --require-browser-feature browser-shell-cookie-jar-file --require-browser-feature browser-shell-local-storage-file --require-browser-feature browser-shell-local-storage-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-session-storage-inspection --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-local-storage --require-browser-feature browser-shell-clear-session-storage --require-browser-feature http-redirect-navigation --require-browser-feature browser-shell-link-activation --require-browser-feature browser-session-reload --require-browser-feature browser-shell-reload --require-browser-feature browser-shell-anchor-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-shell-fragment-navigation --require-browser-feature browser-shell-coordinate-click --require-browser-feature browser-cli-click-at-viewport-offset --require-browser-feature css-max-width-auto-margin-layout --require-browser-feature browser-shell-wheel-events --require-browser-feature browser-shell-find-text --require-browser-feature browser-shell-form-fill-state --require-browser-feature browser-session-select-form-state --require-browser-feature browser-shell-select-form-choice --require-browser-feature browser-session-checkable-form-state --require-browser-feature browser-shell-checkable-form-toggle --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-form-control --require-browser-feature browser-session-focus-traversal --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focused-text-input --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focus-traversal --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-text-edit --require-browser-feature browser-shell-focused-text-edit --require-browser-feature browser-session-focused-form-submit --require-browser-feature browser-shell-enter-submit --require-browser-feature browser-session-urlencoded-post-form-submit --require-browser-feature browser-session-form-submit-button-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-session-submitter-action-method-overrides --require-browser-feature browser-session-form-reset-click-default --require-browser-feature browser-session-pointer-events --require-browser-feature browser-session-mouse-events --require-browser-feature inline-script-dom-text --require-browser-feature inline-script-dom-create --require-browser-feature dom-tree-mutation --require-browser-feature dom-node-traversal --require-browser-feature dom-insertion-methods --require-browser-feature document-fragment --require-browser-feature dom-selector-methods --require-browser-feature dom-inner-html-mutation --require-browser-feature dom-form-control-properties --require-browser-feature dom-location-readback --require-browser-feature dom-set-attribute --require-browser-feature dom-get-attribute --require-browser-feature local-storage-api --require-browser-feature session-storage-api --require-browser-feature timer-task-queue --require-browser-feature document-lifecycle-events --require-browser-feature external-script-render --require-browser-feature inline-onclick-event --require-browser-feature event-listener-click --min-browser-implemented-ratio 0.4 --max-browser-missing 20 --json --save-report

That local gate is useful regression evidence, not a browser-product claim. Browser or combined release claims still need the traceability, readiness, evidence-registry, WPT-subset, visual, platform, security/privacy, operations, and release-review gates for the exact claim being made.

rowser-bench audit is the top-level claim gate. It composes traceability, evidence-registry coverage, and readiness for --claim search, --claim browser, or --claim combined, and exits non-zero with --require-complete until that exact claim has no partial or missing requirements, no uncovered evidence, and no partial or missing readiness areas.

rowser-bench readiness lists the required search-mode and browser-product areas, marks current status as implemented/partial/missing, verifies required plan-document and implementation evidence markers, and exits non-zero with --require-complete until every area has direct evidence. Use --claim search, --claim browser, or --claim combined to inspect only the search readiness areas, only the browser readiness areas, or the full combined surface. Security/privacy is currently partial: the threat model exists, but sandbox, origin-policy, privacy, abuse, fuzzing, and compliance gates remain unfinished. Operations/reliability is also partial: the SLO and runbook plan exists, but dashboards, restore drills, failure injection, load tests, release manifests, and incident automation remain unfinished. Platform completeness is partial too: the subsystem plan exists, but fonts/text shaping, images/SVG, canvas/GPU, media, accessibility, input/editing, storage, devtools, extensions, packaging, updates, and platform QA remain unfinished.

rowser-bench traceability validates docs/REQUIREMENTS_TRACEABILITY.md directly. It fails if required REQ-* rows are missing, duplicated, unknown, malformed, assigned to unknown readiness areas or roadmap milestones, assigned to unknown or mismatched release claim scopes, or contain placeholders, and it can also enforce --require-complete or --require-no-missing gates over the matrix state. Use --require-claim-complete search, browser, or combined to gate only the search claim, the browser claim, or the full combined claim. Use --require-milestone-complete m0 through m6 to require all traceability rows assigned up through that roadmap milestone to be implemented.

rowser-bench evidence validates docs/EVIDENCE_REGISTRY.md. It fails if evidence rows are malformed, duplicated, contain unknown requirement IDs, or leave any required REQ-* row without at least one proof artifact mapped to it.

rowser-bench eval reads JSON Lines relevance judgments and reports MRR, NDCG@K, recall@K, precision@K, unresolved judgments, corpus hash, index hash, and per-query diagnostics. Add --require-mrr, --require-ndcg, --require-recall, --require-precision, or --max-unresolved to turn it into a relevance gate that exits non-zero on regression. Judgment rows look like this:

{"query":"rowser search","relevant":[{"url":"https://fixtures.local/rowser-search","grade":3}]}