PlaywrightCaptchaKrakenJS

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A Patchright (Playwright) wrapper for CaptchaKraken-cli to solve captchas (Recaptcha, hCaptcha, Cloudflare Turnstile) using AI vision models.

Current Capabilities

Right now, we can reliably solve:

• Checkbox captchas: ~100% success rate
• Image captchas: ~60% success rate (work in progress with finetuning vision models to improve this)

Other kinds of captchas have not really been tested. Development will primarily focus on reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile, and hCaptcha.

Prerequisites

1. Node.js and npm.
2. Python 3.10+ installed.

Installation

npm install playwright-captcha-kraken-js patchright-core

If you're cloning this repository, initialize the git submodule:

git submodule update --init --recursive

On install, this package will automatically create a local venv at CaptchaKraken-cli/.venv and install Python dependencies via an npm postinstall hook.

• Skip python setup: set CAPTCHA_KRAKEN_SKIP_PYTHON_SETUP=1
• Use a specific python: set CAPTCHA_KRAKEN_PYTHON=/path/to/python3

Note: Setup your environment variables (API keys) in .env if needed or pass them in config.

Usage

import { chromium } from 'patchright';
import { CaptchaKrakenSolver } from 'playwright-captcha-kraken-js';

(async () => {
  const browser = await chromium.launch({ headless: false });
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  
  // Configure the solver
  const solver = new CaptchaKrakenSolver({
    // Optional overrides:
    // repoPath: '/absolute/path/to/CaptchaKraken-cli', // Usually not needed (auto-resolved from npm package)
    // model: 'gemini-2.5-flash-lite',      // Default
    // apiProvider: 'gemini',               // Default
    // apiKey: 'YOUR_API_KEY',              // Defaults to process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY
    // pythonCommand: 'python3',            // Usually not needed (auto-uses venv python)
  });

  await page.goto('https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/demo');

  // Attempt to solve the captcha
  // This will detect the captcha, screenshot it, call the CLI, and execute clicks.
  // It will also automatically re-check for newly opened next-step challenges
  // (e.g., checkbox -> image grid) and keep solving until solved (or loop limit).
  await solver.solve(page);

  await browser.close();
})();

Configuration

Option	Type	Default	Description
repoPath	string	(auto)	Path to the bundled CaptchaKraken-cli directory (usually not needed).
pythonCommand	string	(auto)	Python command to use. Usually not needed - automatically uses the venv python created during installation.
model	string	'gemini-2.5-flash-lite' (Gemini) or 'google/gemini-2.0-flash-lite-preview-02-05:free' (OpenRouter)	The vision model to use.
apiProvider	'ollama' | 'gemini' | 'openrouter'	'gemini'	The API provider.
apiKey	string	process.env.GEMINI_API_KEY or process.env.OPENROUTER_KEY	API Key (required for Gemini and OpenRouter).
maxSolveLoops	number	10	Max number of detect→solve iterations in a single solve() call.
postSolveDelayMs	number	1200	Delay after each iteration before re-detecting.
overallSolveTimeoutMs	number	120000	Overall time limit for the whole solve() call.

Coming Soon

We're actively working on several improvements to enhance the solver's capabilities:

• Stronger default model: Replacing gemini-2.5-flash-lite with a more capable default model that better handles complex image recognition tasks
• Improved reCAPTCHA accuracy: Finetuned custom model to boost reCAPTCHA image captcha success rate from ~60% to 95%+
• hCaptcha complex drag puzzle solving: Full support for hCaptcha's drag-and-drop puzzle challenges

Testing

To run the tests:

npm test

End-to-End Solving Tests

To run the real-world solving tests (which connect to your local CaptchaKraken-cli), you can optionally provide environment variables to override defaults:

MODEL="llama3.2-vision" \
API_PROVIDER="ollama" \
npx playwright test tests/solving.spec.ts

Note: The tests will automatically use ./CaptchaKraken-cli as the default path. You can override it with CAPTCHA_KRAKEN_REPO_PATH if needed.

These tests will:

1. Navigate to demo pages (Recaptcha, hCaptcha, Turnstile).
2. Attempt to solve the captcha using your local CLI setup.
3. Verify that the solution was accepted.