Laravel Packages

Larapanda: A Type-Safe Lightpanda Browser SDK for Laravel

Published
Larapanda: A Type-Safe Lightpanda Browser SDK for Laravel image

Larapanda is a Laravel SDK for Lightpanda, a headless browser written in Zig. The package handles runtime resolution between CLI binary and Docker, profile-based instance management, typed fetch results, and optional adapters for the Laravel AI SDK and MCP server.

Profile-Based Instance Management

Configuration is organized into named instance profiles. Each profile can override the global defaults for runtime mode, binary path, and Docker settings — making it straightforward to maintain separate profiles for general fetching, crawling, and AI tool sessions.

// config/larapanda.php
'instances' => [
'default' => [],
'crawler' => [
'runtime' => 'cli',
'binary_path' => '/absolute/path/to/lightpanda',
],
'mcp' => [
'runtime' => 'docker',
],
],

Selecting a profile at call time uses the manager interface:

use Ferdiunal\Larapanda\Contracts\LarapandaManagerInterface;
 
$manager = app(LarapandaManagerInterface::class);
 
$defaultClient = $manager->instance('default');
$crawlerClient = $manager->instance('crawler');

Runtime Resolution

The auto runtime prefers CLI execution when a valid binary_path is configured and the binary is executable, and falls back to Docker otherwise. You can also pin a profile to cli or docker explicitly.

Typed Fetch Results

fetchRequest() returns a FetchResult with strict accessors tied to the selected dump format. Calling a mismatched accessor throws UnexpectedFetchOutputFormatException rather than silently returning garbage data.

use Ferdiunal\Larapanda\Enums\FetchDumpFormat;
 
$result = $client->fetchRequest('https://example.com')
->withOptions(
dump: FetchDumpFormat::Markdown,
obeyRobots: true,
waitMs: 2000,
)
->run();
 
$markdown = $result->asMarkdown();
 
// Semantic tree formats
$treeResult = $client->fetchRequest('https://example.com')
->withOptions(dump: FetchDumpFormat::SemanticTree)
->run();
 
$tree = $treeResult->asSemanticTree(); // array<string, mixed>

Proxy support is available per-request:

$result = $client->fetchRequest('https://example.com')
->withOptions(
dump: FetchDumpFormat::Markdown,
httpProxy: 'http://127.0.0.1:3000',
proxyBearerToken: 'MY-TOKEN',
)
->run();

Laravel AI SDK Integration

Larapanda exposes Lightpanda as tools for the Laravel AI SDK. The adapter is session-aware — passing the same session_id across tool calls keeps the browser session open between steps, which matters for multi-step browsing tasks.

composer require laravel/ai laravel/mcp
use Ferdiunal\Larapanda\Integrations\Ai\LarapandaAiTools;
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\AI;
 
$response = AI::provider('openai')
->model('gpt-5-mini')
->prompt('Open laravel.com and return the main headings.')
->tools(app(LarapandaAiTools::class)->make())
->text();

Tool names use the configured prefix (default lightpanda_): lightpanda_markdown, lightpanda_semantic_tree, lightpanda_click, and so on. You can restrict which tools the model sees via config:

'integrations' => [
'ai' => [
'exposed_tools' => ['goto', 'markdown', 'semantic_tree'],
],
],

MCP Server Adapter

For applications using the Laravel MCP server, Larapanda provides an adapter that registers Lightpanda tools with Laravel's container, applies profile-based runtime resolution, and shares the session pool and proxy policy with the AI SDK adapter.

// routes/ai.php
use Ferdiunal\Larapanda\Integrations\Mcp\LarapandaMcpServer;
 
LarapandaMcpServer::registerLocal(name: 'lightpanda');

Session lifetime and pool size are controlled from config:

'integrations' => [
'mcp' => [
'session_ttl_seconds' => 300,
'max_sessions' => 32,
'obey_robots' => true,
],
],

You can find the source and full documentation on GitHub.

Paul Redmond photo

Staff writer at Laravel News. Full stack web developer and author.

Sponsored

acquaintsoft logo
Acquaint Softtech

Hire Laravel developers with AI expertise at $20/hr. Get started in 48 hours.

Visit Acquaint Softtech

The latest

View all →
Validate and Convert HEIC Images in Laravel image

Validate and Convert HEIC Images in Laravel

Read article
Saga Lara Flow: Durable Workflows and Compensating Transactions on Laravel Queues image

Saga Lara Flow: Durable Workflows and Compensating Transactions on Laravel Queues

Read article
Reject Unexpected Array Keys with Laravel Validation image

Reject Unexpected Array Keys with Laravel Validation

Read article
Major performance improvements & security patches for Filament v4.12 and v5.7! image

Major performance improvements & security patches for Filament v4.12 and v5.7!

Read article
Laravel Boost Project Rules: Teach Agents Your Conventions image

Laravel Boost Project Rules: Teach Agents Your Conventions

Read article
Extract an Image's Dominant Color in Laravel image

Extract an Image's Dominant Color in Laravel

Read article