Opensteer Browser Automation

Opensteer provides persistent browser automation via a CLI and TypeScript SDK. It maintains browser sessions across calls and caches resolved element paths for deterministic replay.

CRITICAL: Always Use Opensteer Methods Over Playwright

Opensteer methods are optimized for scraping — they handle waiting, element resolution, and selector caching automatically. Never use raw Playwright when an Opensteer method exists.

Why: opensteer.extract() caches structural selectors that work across pages sharing the same template. Raw querySelectorAll is brittle, non-replayable, and bypasses the caching system. The only valid use of opensteer.page.evaluate() is calling fetch() for API-based extraction when a site has internal REST/GraphQL endpoints.

Default Workflow

Always use the CLI for exploration first. Only write scripts when the user asks.

1. Explore with CLI — Open pages, snapshot, interact with elements interactively
2. Cache selectors — Re-run actions with --description flags to cache element paths for replay
3. Cache extractions — Run extract with --description for every page type the scraper will visit
4. Generate script — Use cached descriptions in TypeScript (no counters needed)

Namespace links CLI and SDK. The --name flag on opensteer open defines the cache namespace. new Opensteer({ name: "..." }) in the SDK reads from the same cache. These must match.

CLI Exploration

# 1. Set session once per shell
export OPENSTEER_SESSION=my-session

# 2. Open page with namespace
opensteer open https://example.com/products --name "product-scraper"

# 3. Snapshot for interactions or data
opensteer snapshot action       # Interactive elements with counters
opensteer snapshot extraction   # Data-oriented HTML with counters

# 4. Interact using counter numbers from snapshot
opensteer click 3
opensteer input 5 "laptop" --pressEnter

# 5. Cache actions with --description for replay
opensteer click 3 --description "the products link"
opensteer input 5 "laptop" --pressEnter --description "the search input"

# 6. Extract data: snapshot extraction → identify counters → extract with schema
opensteer snapshot extraction
opensteer extract '{"products":[{"name":{"element":11},"price":{"element":12}},{"name":{"element":25},"price":{"element":26}}]}' \
  --description "product listing with name and price"

# 7. Cache extractions for ALL page types the scraper will visit
opensteer click 11 --description "first product link"
opensteer snapshot extraction
opensteer extract '{"title":{"element":3},"price":{"element":7}}' \
  --description "product detail page"

# 8. Always close when done
opensteer close

Key rules:

• Set --name on open to define cache namespace
• Specify snapshot mode explicitly: action (interactions) or extraction (data)
• snapshot extraction shows structure; extract produces JSON — never parse snapshot HTML manually
• Use --description to cache selectors for replay (one character difference = cache miss)
• For arrays, include all items in the schema — Opensteer caches the structural pattern and finds all matches on replay
• open does raw page.goto(); use navigate for subsequent pages (includes stability wait)
• Re-snapshot after navigation or significant page changes

Writing Scraper Scripts

Read sdk-reference.md for exact method signatures before writing any script.

Template

import { Opensteer } from "opensteer";

async function run() {
  const opensteer = new Opensteer({
    name: "product-scraper", // MUST match --name from CLI exploration
    storage: { rootDir: process.cwd() },
  });

  await opensteer.launch({ headless: false });

  try {
    await opensteer.goto("https://example.com/products");

    await opensteer.input({
      text: "laptop",
      description: "the search input", // exact match to CLI --description
    });

    // Use extract with description — no schema needed when cache exists
    const data = await opensteer.extract({
      description: "product listing with name and price",
    });

    console.log(JSON.stringify(data, null, 2));
  } finally {
    await opensteer.close();
  }
}

run().catch((err) => {
  console.error(err);
  process.exit(1);
});

Script Rules

• No top-level await — wrap in async function run() + run().catch(...)
• Default to headless: false (many sites block headless)
• Use cached description strings for all interactions and extractions
• Do NOT add wait calls before SDK actions — they handle waiting internally
• Use opensteer.waitForText("literal text") or page.waitForSelector("css") only for page transitions or confirming SPA content loaded
• Run with: npx tsx scraper.ts

Browser Connection

• Sandbox (default): opensteer open <url> — fresh Chromium, no user sessions
• Connect (existing browser): opensteer open --connect-url http://localhost:9222 — attach to a running CDP-enabled browser. Verify CDP: curl -s http://127.0.0.1:9222/json/version

Element Targeting (preference order)

1. Counter (from snapshot): click 5 — fast, needs fresh snapshot
2. Description (cached): click --description "the submit button" — replayable
3. CSS selector: click --selector "#btn" — explicit but brittle

Snapshot Modes

opensteer snapshot action      # Interactable elements (default)
opensteer snapshot extraction  # Flattened HTML for data extraction
opensteer snapshot clickable   # Only clickable elements
opensteer snapshot scrollable  # Only scrollable containers
opensteer snapshot full        # Raw HTML — only for debugging

All modes except full are intelligently filtered to show only relevant elements with counters.

Debugging

When a scraper produces wrong or missing data, diagnose in this order:

1. Timing — SPA content not rendered. Add waitForSelector or waitForText before extraction.
2. Missing cache — Forgot to cache extraction during CLI exploration for a page type.
3. Obstacles — Cookie banners, modals, or login walls blocking the target.
4. Missing data — Some pages genuinely lack certain fields. Handle with null checks.

Do NOT replace opensteer.extract() with page.evaluate() + querySelectorAll when debugging. The extraction logic is not the problem — fix timing, caching, or obstacles instead.

Reference

• CLI commands: cli-reference.md
• SDK API: sdk-reference.md
• Full examples: examples.md