`, ``, and framework-generated wrappers. This skill cuts through that noise. ## What it does **kapture-dom-erode** takes a saved Kapture DOM snapshot and helps you: 1. **Search** -- find any visible text inside the multi-megabyte HTML and report exactly where it lives in the page structure. 2. **Erode** -- strip away all the surrounding markup to reveal just the human-readable text from a region of the page, in the order a user would see it on screen. Think of it like `grep` for what's actually visible on a web page, not what's buried in the source code. ## Why you need this The Kapture MCP plugin captures the full DOM of a browser tab. That's great for fidelity, but the raw HTML is unreadable -- a single sidebar might be wrapped in 20 levels of nested divs. Screenshots show you what's on screen but aren't machine-parseable. This skill bridges the gap: it lets an agent find and read specific on-screen content from the raw DOM, without screenshots and without drowning in markup. **Typical use cases:** - Extract a list of names, statuses, or labels from a web app - Find a specific message, heading, or button text in a complex SPA - Read structured content (tables, cards, menus) from the DOM as clean text - Navigate multi-megabyte page captures that are too large to read directly ## Saving the DOM to a file **This is the critical first step.** The `kapture_dom` MCP tool returns a JSON response object with many keys, including `"html"`. **Where to save:** Write the DOM to a local scratch space in your current working directory (e.g., `.tmp/`, `scratch/`, or similar). If your sandbox does not permit local writes, use `/tmp` as a fallback. **File format:** Save one of these two formats: 1. **Full `kapture_dom` response object (preferred):** write the complete JSON returned by `kapture_dom` to a file as-is. This includes metadata fields like `success`, `url`, `title`, and `html`. 2. **Raw HTML:** the literal HTML string (e.g. `...`) -- no JSON wrapper. The parser defaults to reading `"html"` from JSON. Use `-k / --content-key` if your JSON uses a different field name. ```bash # Save to local scratch space (preferred) ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh top-content -f .tmp/page.json ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh top-content -f .tmp/page.json -k html # Or fallback to /tmp if local writes are blocked ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh top-content -f /tmp/page.json ``` **Global behavior across commands:** - `-k, --content-key` -- optional JSON key for DOM extraction. Default is `html`. ## Commands ### `gron-grep` -- find text in the DOM Search for any text and get back its structural path (like a GPS coordinate for where it sits in the page). ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh gron-grep -f page.json -q "search text" [-i] ``` **Options:** - `-f, --file` -- saved DOM file (JSON with `"html"` key, or raw HTML -- see "Saving the DOM" above) - `-k, --content-key` -- JSON key for DOM content when using JSON input (default: `html`) - `-q, --query` -- the text to search for - `-i, --ignore-case` -- case-insensitive search **Example:** find the word "Online" in a messaging app DOM: ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh gron-grep -f .tmp/page.html -q "online" -i ``` Output: ``` html[0].body[0].div[6].div[0]...div[0].span[0] = "Online" html[0].body[0].div[6].div[0]...div[1].span[0] = "Offline" ``` These paths are like addresses -- they tell you exactly where in the page tree each match lives. ### `extract-text` -- erode tags, reveal content Given a structural path, strip away all HTML tags below that point and return just the visible text, in reading order. ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh extract-text -f page.html -p "structural.path.here" ``` **Options:** - `-f, --file` -- saved DOM file (JSON with `"html"` key, or raw HTML -- see "Saving the DOM" above) - `-k, --content-key` -- JSON key for DOM content when using JSON input (default: `html`) - `-p, --path` -- a gron-style path from `gron-grep` output (or a common ancestor of multiple results) **Example:** extract the member list from a chat sidebar: ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh extract-text -f .tmp/page.html \ -p "html[0].body[0].div[6].div[0].div[0].div[0].div[1]" ``` Output: ``` Online Meagan Connolly Moderator You Julian Le Beron Offline Ben Casey Zoe Spurgeon ``` All the wrapper divs, spans, avatar markup, and CSS classes are gone. What's left is what the user sees. ## Workflow The typical two-step process: 1. **Search** for a keyword you know is on screen: ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh gron-grep -f page.html -q "Online" -i ``` 2. **Compare paths** from the results. Find where they diverge -- the shared prefix is their common container (the region of the page that holds both results). 3. **Extract text** from that common container to get all the visible content in that region: ```bash ./skills/kapture-dom-erode/tools.sh extract-text -f page.html -p "shared.path" ``` This works on any web app -- dashboards, messaging platforms, admin panels, documentation sites -- anything Kapture can capture. ## Files - `tools.sh` -- POSIX shell wrapper (handles dependencies automatically) - `kapture_dom_erode.py` -- Python implementation (BeautifulSoup + lxml) ## Prerequisites - **[uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/)** -- the Python package runner. `tools.sh` uses `uv run` to auto-install dependencies at runtime without polluting the global Python environment. Install with: ```bash curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh ``` The wrapper script will exit with a clear error if `uv` is not found. ## Dependencies - Python 3 (managed by `uv`) - beautifulsoup4 and lxml (auto-installed by `uv run` at runtime) No manual installation required. ## Known limitations The tool filters hidden elements detected from **inline attributes only**: `display:none`, `visibility:hidden`, `hidden`, `aria-hidden="true"`, and common screenreader-only CSS classes. It also strips HTML comments. Some SPAs (e.g., Canvas LMS) keep both "fulfilled" and "unfulfilled" states in the DOM and toggle visibility via **external CSS class rules**. Since we parse the DOM without the full stylesheet, these toggle-state templates may appear as duplicate noise in the output. If you encounter repeated template fragments, narrow your extraction path to skip the noisy container. ## Keywords kapture, kapture-mcp, kapture-dom, dom-erode, dom-parse, dom-extract, tag-soup, structural-erosion, browser-automation, web-scraping, opencode-skill