Browser Location

KERNEL selects one timezone and formatting locale for each browser session. By default, it resolves each field from the browser’s effective proxy geography and falls back to the browser’s region while resolution is pending or unavailable. The setting applies across browser contexts, pages, frames, workers, Intl, navigator.language, navigator.languages, and future Accept-Language headers. Updating it doesn’t restart Chromium or reload pages.

Location controls timezone and language behavior. It doesn’t set geolocation coordinates, grant geolocation permission, change the system clock, translate browser UI, or guarantee a bot-detection outcome.

Set location when creating a browser

Set either field independently. Omit a field to let KERNEL select it automatically.

import Kernel from '@onkernel/sdk';

const kernel = new Kernel();
const browser = await kernel.browsers.create({
  proxy: { name: 'berlin-checkout' },
  location: {
    timezone: 'Europe/Berlin',
    locale: 'de-DE',
  },
});

console.log(browser.location);

from kernel import Kernel

kernel = Kernel()
browser = kernel.browsers.create(
    proxy={"name": "berlin-checkout"},
    location={
        "timezone": "Europe/Berlin",
        "locale": "de-DE",
    },
)

print(browser.location)

timezone accepts supported IANA identifiers such as America/Los_Angeles. locale accepts canonical BCP 47 tags such as en-US or de-DE. KERNEL validates the complete request before changing the session.

Update a running browser

Use browsers.update() to set an override without restarting Chromium:

const browser = await kernel.browsers.update('01j8m3w6q2d7av9n5k4f1p8c', {
  location: {
    timezone: 'America/Los_Angeles',
    locale: 'en-US',
  },
});

browser = kernel.browsers.update(
    "01j8m3w6q2d7av9n5k4f1p8c",
    location={
        "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
        "locale": "en-US",
    },
)

PATCH semantics are field-specific:

omit location or one of its fields to leave that field unchanged
set a string to create or replace a session override
set a field to null in TypeScript or None in Python to clear that override and resume automatic selection

const browser = await kernel.browsers.update('01j8m3w6q2d7av9n5k4f1p8c', {
  location: {
    timezone: null,
  },
});

browser = kernel.browsers.update(
    "01j8m3w6q2d7av9n5k4f1p8c",
    location={"timezone": None},
)

Clearing one field doesn’t clear the other. Explicit overrides also survive proxy changes for the rest of that session.

Read effective location

Browser responses include the effective values, per-field provenance, and convergence state:

{
  "location": {
    "timezone": "Europe/Berlin",
    "locale": "de-DE",
    "timezone_source": "proxy_metadata",
    "locale_source": "proxy_metadata",
    "pending": false
  }
}

timezone_source and locale_source can be override, proxy_metadata, geoip, exit_ip, or metro. KERNEL resolves the fields independently, so their sources can differ. When pending is true, the API has accepted the desired policy but the running browser hasn’t finished converging. Browser creation and proxy updates don’t wait for external geography discovery. KERNEL keeps the current values during a delayed or failed lookup and applies a valid late result in the background.

Runtime behavior

New pages, frames, workers, and network contexts start with the latest applied defaults.
Existing pages and workers receive the update without a reload.
Existing Intl formatter objects and application-level caches can retain values captured before the update. Create a new formatter when you need the latest default.
Future requests use the updated language preference. Requests already in flight aren’t rewritten.
Customer CDP emulation remains separate from the session default and can temporarily override what a particular target reports.
Location overrides last only for the browser session. Profiles don’t save them.

For rotating residential and mobile proxies, KERNEL resolves location when the proxy is attached or explicitly changed. It doesn’t chase silent exit-IP rotation, and one discovery request doesn’t represent destination-specific routes for every website.

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Browser Location

Set location when creating a browser

Update a running browser

Read effective location

Runtime behavior

​Set location when creating a browser

​Update a running browser

​Read effective location

​Runtime behavior

Set location when creating a browser

Update a running browser

Read effective location

Runtime behavior