`mac-approve` only works for stock Google Chrome — Brave/Edge/Canary/Arc users get "setup-required" for a toggle they already enabled

[rajarshidattapy]

Labels: bug, macos

Description

browser-harness mac-approve is the documented escape hatch for macOS's per-connection
"Allow remote debugging?" sheet. Both of its moving parts are hard-coded to stock
Google Chrome.

The gate:

# src/browser_harness/macos.py:60-66
def _google_chrome_root() -> Path:
    return Path.home() / "Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome"

def _google_chrome_toggle_enabled() -> bool:
    """Only accept the toggle from the Google Chrome root used by the script."""
    return _google_chrome_root() in remote_debugging_toggle_profiles()

The AppleScript:

if exists process "Google Chrome" then
    tell process "Google Chrome"

daemon._MAC_PROFILES, meanwhile, supports eight browsers:

"Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome",
"Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome Canary",
"Library/Application Support/Comet",
"Library/Application Support/Arc/User Data",
"Library/Application Support/Dia/User Data",
"Library/Application Support/Microsoft Edge",          # + Beta / Dev / Canary
"Library/Application Support/BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser",

Impact

A Brave (or Edge, Canary, Arc, Dia, Comet) user on macOS:

1. Runs browser-harness, hits the Allow sheet.

2. ensure_daemon() prints "run browser-harness mac-approve in another shell"
   (admin.py:392-397 — this hint is not conditioned on which browser is in use).

3. Ticks "Allow remote debugging for this browser instance" in their browser.

4. Runs mac-approve and gets:

   setup-required: first enable "Allow remote debugging for this browser instance" at
   chrome://inspect/#remote-debugging, then run `browser-harness mac-approve` again
   

The message is wrong — they did enable it — and it is unactionable, because
remote_debugging_toggle_profiles() correctly reports their Brave profile while
_google_chrome_toggle_enabled() only ever looks at the Chrome path. Even if the gate
passed, the AppleScript would find no process "Google Chrome" and return not-found.

This is the only unattended path past the sheet, so these users have no way to run the
harness without a human clicking the button every time.

Suggested fix

Resolve the browser once and use it for both halves:

_MAC_APP_FOR_PROFILE = {
    "Google/Chrome": "Google Chrome",
    "Google/Chrome Canary": "Google Chrome Canary",
    "Microsoft Edge": "Microsoft Edge",
    "BraveSoftware/Brave-Browser": "Brave Browser",
    "Arc/User Data": "Arc",
    "Dia/User Data": "Dia",
    "Comet": "Comet",
}

Pick the first entry in remote_debugging_toggle_profiles() that maps to a known app,
template its name into the AppleScript's process "..." lines, and only return
setup-required when no supported profile has the toggle on. admin._browser_launch_spec()
already does the profile-path → macOS-app-name mapping and could be reused rather than
duplicated.

If a browser genuinely can't be supported, the error should name it
("mac-approve does not support Arc") instead of claiming the user skipped a step.

[rajarshidattapy]

Would be better if I don't take this up, won't be able to test locally, I don't have a mac.

Would appreciate a mac-user taking this up.