(formerly known as site2zip)

As a security researcher, developer, or analyst,
I want to take a single URL and create a full-fidelity capture of how a modern browser would load that page,
so that I can preserve the rendered DOM, assets, scripts, screenshots, and navigation behavior
into a downloadable .zip bundle for offline review or archival — without performing a full recursive crawl.

This process is referred to as taking a "snap".

• Accept a single URL from the user
• Support custom headers (optional), e.g.:
  • User-Agent override
  • Cookies or auth tokens
• Detect and follow any HTTP or JavaScript redirects, saving the redirect chain

• Launch a headless browser session (Chromium or equivalent)
• Behave like a modern browser:
  • Execute JavaScript
  • Load iframes, scripts, images, fonts, and stylesheets
  • Trigger dynamic AJAX/XHR fetches
• Wait for network idle, or use a configurable timeout to determine when the page is “done loading”

On successful load:

• Save final DOM as index.html (post-JS rendering)
• Capture a full-page screenshot
• Save a HAR log or equivalent request/response trace
• Detect and save any navigation or redirection to special pages like logout.htm (e.g., as redirect-capture.html)
• Save all loaded assets:
  • Images
  • JavaScript
  • CSS
  • Fonts
  • Favicon
  • XHR/Fetch JSON responses (optional, if possible to detect cleanly)

• Bundle all saved assets and metadata into a single .zip file
• Folder structure inside the zip should be logical:

/HTTPolaroid_snap/
├── index.html
├── screenshot.png
├── redirect-capture.html (if applicable)
├── harlog.json
├── assets/
│ ├── js/
│ ├── css/
│ ├── images/
│ └── fonts/
└── meta.json ← Includes final URL, status, timestamp

• Zip should be streamed to the client or saved to disk depending on usage context (CLI vs Flask)

• ✅ Accepts a URL
• ✅ Uses a browser-like engine to load content (likely Puppeteer or Playwright)
• ✅ Saves HTML and screenshot
• ✅ Handles basic redirection and asset inclusion
• ✅ Creates a downloadable .zip file

(Out of scope unless requested)

• Screenshot diffs between multiple snaps
• JS console error capture
• CSP or security header audit
• Interactive .html viewer for exploring the bundle

HTTPolaroid creates a high-fidelity snapshot (“snap”) of a web page as loaded in a full browser context. It focuses on:

• Emulating full browser behavior (JS, assets, redirects)
• Capturing all visible and background-loaded content
• Packaging everything for forensic or research-grade analysis

It is not a crawler or archiver. It’s a browser-grade single-request capture tool that integrates seamlessly into RetroRecon as the site2zip module — now rebranded as HTTPolaroid.