Anchor

Move an Anchor Browser automation to Kernel

Anchor and Kernel overlap most on authentication: both treat logged-in browser sessions as a product rather than a cookie jar. The mapping is mostly one-to-one, and the connection change is one line.

Concept mapping

Concept	Anchor	Kernel
Create a session	client.sessions.create()	kernel.browsers.create()
CDP endpoint	Session CDP URL	browser.cdp_ws_url
End a session	Delete the session	kernel.browsers.deleteByID(session_id), or let timeout_seconds expire
Live view / takeover	Session live view URL	browser.browser_live_view_url, embeddable — see live view
Managed login	Managed auth	Managed auth — connection per domain, written into a profile
Hosted login UI	Embedded auth UI	Hosted login UI, or your own React flow / programmatic flow
Stored identity	Identities	Profiles
Recording	Session recording	Replays
Stealth	Stealth session option	Anti-detection by default; stealth: true adds the managed proxy and solver
Proxies	Session proxy config	Proxies, unmetered on Kernel-provided types
Task-shaped API	Tasks	Use playwright execution for scripted steps and computer controls for model-driven ones — see how you drive the browser
Warm sessions	—	Browser pools
Deploy your agent	—	App Platform

Moving the auth setup

This is the part worth doing carefully, because it’s where the two products differ in shape. On Kernel:

1. A connection binds one domain’s authentication state to a named profile.
2. Kernel performs the login — hosted UI, your own UI, or programmatically — and writes the session into that profile.
3. Kernel health-checks the connection and reauthenticates supported flows in the background.
4. Any browser you create with profile: { name } starts logged in, for every domain connected to that profile.

const connection = await kernel.auth.connections.create({
  domain: 'app.example.com',
  profile_name: 'user-8f21c3',
});

const login = await kernel.auth.connections.login(connection.id);
console.log('send the user here:', login.hosted_url);

const browser = await kernel.browsers.create({
  profile: { name: 'user-8f21c3', save_changes: true },
  stealth: true,
});

One profile can hold many domains, which is how you map one end user to one profile — see multiple auth connections per profile. If you hold accounts for your own customers, also read multi-tenant patterns.

Things to check

• Reauthentication is not universal. Passkey-only flows aren’t supported, and some sites need per-site configuration. See the managed auth FAQ and test your flow before cutting over.
• Health check cadence is per plan. See pricing and limits.
• Concurrency and create rate are separate limits. See concurrency and limits.