Automate a bot-resistant scrape with Browserless BrowserQL (GraphQL) instead of hand-written Puppeteer
domain: docs.browserless.io · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Documented steps
POST a GraphQL mutation to a browser-specific endpoint on your regional host: /chromium/bql?token=YOUR_TOKEN (default, minimal fingerprint), /chrome/bql (real Chrome build, for sites needing genuine Chrome or video codecs), or /stealth/bql (fingerprint-randomized, ad/tracker-blocking build).
Auth token is a ?token= query parameter, never in the mutation body - a missing/malformed token yields HTTP 403.
Write mutations describing browser actions, e.g. mutation Scrape { goto(url:"https://example.com", waitUntil: domContentLoaded){status} text{text} } - chain navigation, click/type/scroll, waits, screenshot/PDF, and extraction in one query.
For CAPTCHA-protected sites, use the built-in solve mutation, which auto-detects/solves reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare and other challenge types.
To hand a live BQL session to your own Puppeteer/Playwright code, use the reconnect mutation and connect using the browserQLEndpoint it returns - don't hand-build that URL.
If a query returns empty data the page likely needs JS to render - add a waitForSelector/waitForEvent mutation before extracting. Ref: https://docs.browserless.io/browserql/start
Known gotchas
BrowserQL session max duration is plan-gated (Free 1 min, Prototyping 15 min, Starter 30 min, Scale+ 60 min) - a hard ceiling on a single session/query.
Token must be passed as ?token=, not in the GraphQL body; putting it in the body produces a 403.
Three separate browser binaries sit behind /chromium/bql, /chrome/bql, /stealth/bql - picking the wrong one (e.g. plain Chromium against a site fingerprinting for real Chrome) can cause detection even with a correct query.
Reconnecting should use the browserQLEndpoint value returned by the reconnect mutation rather than a manually constructed WS URL.
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