Register Aside with agents and choose the external browser

[arzafran]

What this does

Makes Aside, a Chromium-based agent browser, a first-class partner for agents running in Programa. programa aside install-mcp registers Aside's MCP server with Claude Code and Codex in one step (and --with-devtools adds a DevTools Protocol bridge to Aside's live port 9223), so agents can hand logged-in web work to the browser that has the user's sessions. A new Settings > Browser picker sends links that leave Programa to Aside instead of the system default browser. Docs explain when an agent should use Programa's embedded browser versus Aside.

Summary

• CLI/CLI+Aside.swift: locator for the aside binary, a report-only probe of http://127.0.0.1:9223/json/version, a pure command-plan builder, and status / install-mcp / uninstall-mcp with the same confirm-then-run flow as the Codex hooks installer. Registration shells out to claude mcp add and codex mcp add, so Programa never edits those config files itself. File menu gets "Install Aside Browser MCP…".
• BrowserLinkOpenSettings.openExternally routes every http(s) external open through the chosen browser (browserExternalBrowserBundleIdentifier, browser.externalBrowser in settings.json). Deep-link schemes (slack://, mailto:) still go to the system handler on purpose.
• Docs: new docs/aside-browser.md, a Browser work section in SKILL.md, and pointers from docs/agent-skill.md, docs/settings-json.md, and the README. The reverse direction (Aside driving a Claude Code pane) is documented as waiting on Aside shipping an MCP client; programa-mcp already has the tools it would need.

Review order: CLI/CLI+Aside.swift, then Sources/Panels/BrowserSettings.swift, then SettingsView.swift; the rest is call-site fallout and docs. Pairs with the browser_* MCP tools PR but does not depend on it.

Test plan

• xcodebuild test -scheme programa-unit -only-testing:programaTests/BrowserLinkOpenSettingsTests passes (17 tests, verified locally).
• Debug build: programa aside status prints the Aside path, the DevTools endpoint while Aside is running, and "not registered" for both clients.
• Settings > Browser > Open External Links With lists installed browsers; pick Aside, cmd-click a non-local link in a terminal, it opens in Aside.
• programa aside install-mcp --yes on a machine with Aside, then claude mcp list and codex mcp list show aside.

[arzafran]

Codex cross-model review: 4 medium, 3 low. Verified: scheme scoping, uninstall requiring the aside binary, fail-open confirmation on EOF, and the popup insecure-HTTP alert were real and are fixed in the follow-up commit, with a unit test for the scheme scoping. The launch completion error is now logged; the return value still means dispatched, which the doc comment says. Wrong or left as is: the -y flag is registered in the shared parser the same way as the existing installers; chrome-devtools-mcp@latest stays unpinned on purpose, matching how Codex's own config references it.