AgentCore Browser fails on CodeZip, fixed via /tmp copy

The article sets out to compare three ways an AI agent on Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Runtime can reach web information: AgentCore Browser, a plain HTTP request approach, and AgentCore Web Search. A fourth candidate, running Chromium directly inside the runtime, was dropped early because it requires bundling Chromium and OS libraries, which does not fit the CodeZip format. The author's focus is only on AgentCore Browser.

The central tension is that AgentCore Browser is not meant for the CodeZip deployment style. AWS's own export notes state the browser tool requires a Container build and that the Playwright Node driver cannot run in a CodeZip runtime. The author confirmed this in practice, hitting a permission error on the driver file, and noted how the runtime is laid out: the read-only app files under /var/task, and a writable /tmp area. Copying the driver into /tmp and granting execute permission resolved it.

Once fixed, the tool handled every test the author threw at it, from simple page summaries to a full login flow and a live stock-price lookup. The author's closing read is that AgentCore Browser covers essentially any browser task, but is more than a web-search-only use case needs. A default setup can run into bot-detection CAPTCHAs, which raises the risk of wrong answers, and stricter control means writing more Playwright code. The trade-off is likely to hinge on how much browser control a team actually requires.