Browser Automation

Browser Automation

Use this skill when you need the browser tool for anything beyond a single page check.

Operating Loop

1. Check browser state before acting:
   • openclaw browser doctor or action="status" when the browser/plugin setup itself may be broken.
   • action="status" for availability.
   • action="profiles" if login state or profile choice matters.
   • action="tabs" before opening a new tab if retries/timeouts may have left windows behind.
2. Prefer stable tab handles:
   • Open important tabs with label, for example label="meet".
   • After action="tabs" or action="open", store suggestedTargetId and pass it as targetId in later calls.
   • suggestedTargetId is the label when one exists, otherwise the stable tabId handle like t1.
   • Avoid relying on raw DevTools targetId except for immediate diagnostics; it can change under Chromium target replacement.
3. Read before you click:
   • For “read the page and answer X,” use action="text" with optional selector and maxChars for bounded visible prose (first selector match, otherwise article/main/body). On existing-session profiles, use snapshot instead. Efficient snapshots omit most prose.
   • For virtualized lists, scroll through each segment, capture only the relevant rows, then merge the results.
   • Use action="snapshot" on the intended targetId.
   • Add snapshot query to find lines containing all query tokens, ignoring case; matching lines keep their refs.
   • Use the same targetId for follow-up actions so refs stay on the same tab.
   • For durable Playwright refs, request refs="aria" when supported. If you receive axN refs from snapshotFormat="aria", use them only after that same snapshot call; stale or unbound axN refs fail fast and need a fresh snapshot.
   • Use urls=true when link text is ambiguous or a direct navigation target would avoid brittle clicks.
   • Use labels=true on snapshot or screenshot when visual position matters. On Playwright-backed profiles, the response includes an annotations array ({ref, number, role, name?, box}) with each ref's bounding box in the captured image's coordinate space, so you can reason about position without re-snapshotting; screenshot labels can also combine with fullPage=true (CLI: --full-page) to label the whole document, or ref / element to clip to one element. profile="user" and other existing-session (chrome-mcp) profiles render an overlay into page screenshots but do not attach annotations or use the Playwright full-page/ref/element projection helper, so read positions from the labeled image itself on those profiles. The raw-CDP fallback (no Playwright) does not support labeled screenshots at all and returns a 501, so only request labels when Playwright is available.
4. Act narrowly:
   • Prefer action="act" with a ref from the latest snapshot.
   • navigate returns the loaded page's compact snapshot inline, and batch act results that report a cross-document navigation include fresh page state; use those refs directly instead of a follow-up snapshot call.
   • After a single act that triggers navigation, and after modal changes or form submissions, snapshot again before the next action.
   • Avoid blind waits. Wait for visible UI state when possible.
   • Use action="emulate" with device, colorScheme, timezoneId, or locale when testing those settings; snapshot again afterward. Existing-session profiles do not support emulation.
5. Report real blockers:
   • Debug network failures with action="requests", optional URL/type filter, and limit (default 50 recent entries). clear=true clears the collected log after reading. Use a managed profile; existing-session profiles do not support this log.
   • Debug page errors with action="errors" and limit (default 50 recent entries). clear=true clears the collected log after reading. Existing-session profiles do not support this log.
   • If the page needs login, permission, captcha, 2FA, camera/microphone approval, or another manual step, stop and tell the user exactly what is needed.
   • Do not claim the browser is not logged in just because the current page shows a permission or onboarding dialog. Inspect the visible UI first.

Browser batch CLI

openclaw browser batch runs an array of nested /act actions in one /act call (the same kind="batch" runtime reached through the agent tool), so CLI users and scripts can combine actions like wait, click, type, and evaluate into a single replayable plan without per-action round trips. Each entry in actions[] is a BrowserActRequest — the closed union the /act route accepts — not arbitrary openclaw browser subcommands. batch is not supported on profile="user" and other existing-session (chrome-mcp) profiles; send actions individually there.

• CLI: openclaw browser batch --actions '<json>', --actions-file plan.json, or --actions-file - for stdin. --actions-file and stdin input are capped at 1,000,000 bytes; split larger plans into multiple batch commands. --continue sets stopOnError=false; default stops on first error.
• Ref lifecycle: refs come from a snapshot run before the batch (snapshot is not a nested action). A nested action that changes page state — such as a click that triggers navigation, or an evaluate that mutates the DOM — can invalidate earlier refs for the rest of the batch; put state-changing actions first, or split into a follow-up batch after re-snapshotting. Navigation and re-snapshotting happen outside the batch, since open, navigate, and snapshot are not /act kinds.
• Target id: nested actions share the request's tab; an explicit nested targetId that resolves to a different tab is rejected with ACT_TARGET_ID_MISMATCH.
• Response: { "results": [{ "ok": true } | { "ok": false, "error": "..." }, ...] } in order; with default stopOnError the array ends at the first failure. Any failed entry exits nonzero; use --json to preserve the full response in scripts.