interactive

Open a headed (visible) browser window for manual navigation. Violations are captured as you browse, and a policy is generated when you close the browser.

Usage

csp-analyser interactive <url> [options]

Options

Option	Default	Description
--strictness <level>	moderate	Policy generation strictness: strict, moderate, or permissive.
--format <fmt>	header	Output format: header, meta, nginx, apache, cloudflare, cloudflare-pages, azure-frontdoor, helmet, or json.
--storage-state <path>	--	Path to a Playwright storage state JSON file for pre-authenticated sessions.
--save-storage-state <path>	--	Export cookies and storage state to a JSON file when the browser closes.
--violation-limit <n>	10000	Maximum violations to capture. Set to 0 for unlimited.
--nonce	false	Replace 'unsafe-inline' with nonce placeholders.
--strict-dynamic	false	Add 'strict-dynamic' alongside nonces. Implies --nonce.
--hash	false	Compute SHA-256 hashes for all inline content and remove 'unsafe-inline' from directives that have hash sources.
--strip-unsafe-eval	false	Remove 'unsafe-eval' from the generated policy even if violations were captured for it.
--report-only	false	Generate a report-only header.
--project <name>	auto-detected	Override auto-detected project name. Sessions are tagged with this name.

INFO

The --depth and --max-pages options do not apply to interactive mode. You control which pages are visited by navigating manually.

How it works

1. A Chromium browser window opens, navigated to the provided URL
2. A deny-all report-only CSP is injected into every response
3. As you browse, every CSP violation is captured in the background
4. After each page load, all inline content (<script>, <style>, event handlers, style attributes) is extracted from the DOM and SHA-256 hashes are computed
5. New tabs opened during your session are also instrumented — violations and inline hashes are captured across all tabs
6. When you close the browser window, the session ends
7. The captured violations and inline hashes are aggregated into a policy, which is printed to stdout

Each page you visit is recorded. The summary table shows the total pages visited and violations captured.

When to use interactive mode

Interactive mode is the right choice when:

• Single-page applications (SPAs): automated crawling only follows <a> links, so SPA routes triggered by JavaScript navigation are missed. Use interactive mode to click through the app.
• Complex authentication flows: if your site uses multi-factor auth, CAPTCHAs, or OAuth redirects that cannot be captured in a storage state file.
• Dynamic content: pages that require user interaction (scrolling, clicking tabs, expanding accordions) to load all resources.
• Testing specific workflows: you want a policy that covers a specific user journey rather than the entire site.

Examples

Basic interactive session

csp-analyser interactive https://app.example.com

Opens the browser. Navigate through the app, then close the window. The policy appears in your terminal.

With pre-existing auth

csp-analyser interactive https://app.example.com --storage-state auth.json

Starts the session already logged in.

Strict policy as JSON

csp-analyser interactive https://example.com --strictness strict --format json

Replace 'unsafe-inline' with hashes

csp-analyser interactive https://app.example.com --hash

As you browse, CSP Analyser extracts the full content of every inline <script>, <style>, event handler, and style attribute and computes SHA-256 hashes. The resulting policy uses these hashes instead of 'unsafe-inline', so no runtime changes to your application are required.

Export session state for later headless crawls

# Log in interactively and save the authenticated session
csp-analyser interactive https://app.example.com --save-storage-state auth.json

# Reuse the session for a deep headless crawl later
csp-analyser crawl https://app.example.com --storage-state auth.json --depth 3

The storage state file captures cookies, localStorage, and sessionStorage. It's saved with 0600 permissions. See the Authentication guide for more details.

Save the result

csp-analyser interactive https://example.com > policy.txt

Progress messages appear in the terminal while you browse. The policy is written to the file after you close the browser.

When to use this command

Use interactive for single-page applications, sites with complex client-side routing, or any page that requires manual interaction to trigger all resource loads. Unlike crawl which follows links automatically, interactive opens a visible browser window and lets you navigate manually — clicking buttons, filling forms, triggering modals, and exercising dynamic content. When you close the browser, CSP Analyser generates the policy from everything it observed. Not suitable for headless CI environments.

Related commands

• crawl — Automatic headless crawling for traditional multi-page sites
• audit — Audit an existing CSP with manual or automatic navigation
• generate — Regenerate the policy with different settings
• export — Export the generated policy in a deployment format