@onestepat4time/asteria

Give any AI agent direct control over Perplexity Comet via the Model Context Protocol.

How It Works

Asteria is an MCP server that bridges AI assistants with Perplexity Comet — the agentic browser that researches, browses, and answers questions autonomously. Unlike simple search APIs, Comet navigates pages, follows links, and reasons over live web content. Asteria exposes all of that through 13 MCP tools via Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), with no Puppeteer or Playwright dependencies.

graph LR
  A["AI Agent\n(Claude / GPT / Gemini)"] -->|"MCP stdio"| B["Asteria\nMCP Server"]
  B -->|"CDP WebSocket"| C["Perplexity\nComet Browser"]
  C -->|"HTTP requests"| D["Web Pages\n& Sources"]
  D -->|"Response + Sources"| C
  C -->|"Research results"| B
  B -->|"Formatted response"| A

The agent sends a prompt through MCP. Asteria connects to Comet over CDP, submits the query, monitors Comet's agentic research cycle, and returns the full response with cited sources.

Features

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18
• Perplexity Comet installed and running
• Windows, macOS, or Linux (Linux requires setting COMET_PATH)

Installation

npm install -g @onestepat4time/asteria

Quick Start

1. Add to your MCP client config

Claude Code (~/.claude/claude_desktop_config.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "asteria": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "asteria",
      "args": ["start"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor (~/.cursor/mcp.json) — same format.

2. Make sure Comet is running

Open Perplexity Comet on your machine. Asteria auto-detects the running instance.

3. Use in your agent

> Ask Perplexity what the latest AI research papers are this week

Asteria connects to Comet, sends the query, waits for the full research response, and returns it with cited sources to your assistant.

Tools

CLI

asteria start      # Start MCP stdio server
asteria detect     # Detect Comet installation path and debug port
asteria --version  # Print version
asteria --help     # Print help

Configuration

All settings can be overridden via environment variables:

See Configuration for the full reference.

Guides

Architecture

graph TD
  subgraph MCP["MCP Protocol Layer"]
    T1[comet_connect] & T2[comet_ask] & T3[comet_poll]
    T4[comet_wait] & T5[comet_stop] & T6[comet_screenshot]
    T7[comet_mode] & T8[comet_list_tabs] & T9[comet_switch_tab]
    T10[comet_get_sources] & T11[comet_list_conversations]
    T12[comet_open_conversation] & T13[comet_get_page_content]
  end

  subgraph UI["UI Automation"]
    S[Selector Strategies]
    I[Prompt Input]
    ST[Status Detection]
    EX[Content Extraction]
  end

  subgraph CDP["CDP Transport"]
    BR[Browser Launcher]
    CO[WebSocket Connection]
    TA[Tab Management]
    RC[Auto-Reconnect]
  end

  T2 --> I
  T3 --> ST
  T4 --> ST
  T10 & T13 --> EX
  T6 & T8 --> TA
  I & ST & EX --> S
  CO --> BR
  TA & RC --> CO
  CO --> Comet[Perplexity Comet]

Roadmap

• Streaming responses — stream Comet responses token-by-token instead of polling
• MCP Resources — expose Perplexity pages as MCP resources for direct reading
• Multi-Comet sessions — control multiple Comet instances simultaneously
• HTTP/SSE transport — support N8N and REST clients in addition to stdio
• Browser extension — package as a browser extension for tighter integration

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Open an issue before submitting large PRs.

git clone https://github.com/OneStepAt4time/asteria.git
cd asteria
npm install
npm run build
npm test

See Contributing for code style, adding Comet versions, and commit conventions.

Support the Project

If Asteria saves you time, consider sponsoring:

License

MIT © 2026 OneStepAt4time