@browserbasehq/sdk fails on Node ≥24.17.0 — ERR_STREAM_PREMATURE_CLOSE on every API call (node-fetch@2)

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Assessment

Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Newbie friendliness
82/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Clearly specified
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
node.js, typescript
Domain
api, backend

Research direction

Start in _shims/node-runtime.js and inspect how getRuntime().fetch selects the Node HTTP client. Reproduce the failure with the listed Node 24.17.0 sessions call, then verify that API requests, including sessions.create() and sessions.retrieve(), complete successfully using the global fetch path.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Summary

Every Browserbase SDK request throws ERR_STREAM_PREMATURE_CLOSE on Node.js ≥ 24.17.0:

FetchError: Invalid response body while trying to fetch https://api.browserbase.com/v1/sessions: Premature close
    code: 'ERR_STREAM_PREMATURE_CLOSE'
    type: 'system'

This takes down anything built on the SDK, including Stagehand (BROWSERBASE env): sessions.create() / sessions.retrieve() fail, so stagehand.init() never completes and sessions show ~0s duration in the dashboard.

Root cause

The SDK's node runtime shim (_shims/node-runtime.js, getRuntime().fetch = nf.default) uses node-fetch@2 with agentkeepalive / http.Agent. Node 24.17.0 shipped CVE-2026-48931 "fix response queue poisoning in http.Agent" (+ llhttp 9.4.2), and node-fetch@2's keep-alive response-stream handling can't cope — it reports the body as prematurely closed. node-fetch@2.7.0 is the last v2 release and is effectively unmaintained.

Node's own https and undici (global fetch) are unaffected.

Minimal reproduction (Node 24.17.0)

const Browserbase = require('@browserbasehq/sdk').default;
const bb = new Browserbase({ apiKey: process.env.BROWSERBASE_API_KEY });
await bb.sessions.list({ status: 'RUNNING' });   // ❌ ERR_STREAM_PREMATURE_CLOSE
Isolation matrix (same host, same key, same endpoint)
HTTP client Node 24.16.0 Node 24.17.0
node-fetch@2 (SDK default) ✅ ❌ 5/5 ERR_STREAM_PREMATURE_CLOSE
undici / global fetch ✅ ✅
core https.request ✅ ✅

Fix that works (verified)

Have the SDK prefer global fetch (undici) on Node ≥18. Confirmed working end-to-end (create → retrieve → CDP connect) on Node 24.17.0:

new Browserbase({ apiKey, fetch: (...a) => globalThis.fetch(...a) }); // ✅

i.e. getRuntime().fetch should be globalThis.fetch ?? nodeFetch.

Environment

  • @browserbasehq/sdk 2.12.0 (also reproduces conceptually on 2.15.0 — still depends on node-fetch@^2.6.7)
  • @browserbasehq/stagehand 3.4.0 (and 3.6.0, via the same SDK dep)
  • Node 24.17.0 (works on 24.16.0)
  • macOS + Linux (prod)
Dominant language
TypeScript
Stars
64
Forks
17
Avg merge
13m
Merged PRs (30d)
4

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