open command mangles chrome-extension:// URLs by auto-upgrading to HTTPS

[rsiddle]

When using agent-browser open with a chrome-extension:// URL, the scheme is silently rewritten to https://chrome-extension//... (colon stripped, scheme upgraded), causing ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED.

This prevents navigating to extension pages (popup, side panel, options) which is a core requirement for Chrome extension testing.

Reproduction

# Load an extension and try to navigate to its page
agent-browser \
  --extension /path/to/unpacked/extension \
  --session test \
  --headed \
  open "chrome-extension://abcdefghijklmnop/popup.html"

Expected: Browser navigates to chrome-extension://abcdefghijklmnop/popup.html

Actual:
✗ page.goto: net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED at https://chrome-extension//abcdefghijklmnop/popup.html

The :// is stripped and the URL is upgraded to https://, producing an invalid URL.

Workarounds attempted

Method	Result
agent-browser open chrome-extension://...	Rewritten to https://chrome-extension//...
agent-browser tab new chrome-extension://...	ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT
agent-browser eval "location.href = 'chrome-extension://...'"	ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT
agent-browser eval "window.open('chrome-extension://...')"	Tab created but shows chrome-error://chromewebdata/

None of the agent-browser commands can navigate to chrome-extension:// URLs.

Working Playwright approach

Using Playwright directly (which agent-browser wraps) works perfectly:

  const { chromium } = require('playwright');

  const context = await chromium.launchPersistentContext('/tmp/test', {
    args: [
      `--disable-extensions-except=${extPath}`,
      `--load-extension=${extPath}`,
    ],
  });

  let sw = context.serviceWorkers()[0];
  if (!sw) sw = await context.waitForEvent('serviceworker');
  const extensionId = sw.url().split('/')[2];

  const page = context.pages()[0];
  await page.goto(`chrome-extension://${extensionId}/popup.html`); // Works!

Reference: https://playwright.dev/docs/chrome-extensions

This confirms the issue is in agent-browser's URL processing, not a Playwright or Chromium limitation.

Suggested fix

Skip the HTTPS auto-upgrade for URLs with the chrome-extension:// scheme. These are legitimate navigation targets when --extension is used and should be passed through to Playwright's page.goto() unmodified.

Similarly, chrome:// URLs (e.g., chrome://extensions) are also affected by the upgrade logic and could be preserved.