Browser automation plays a big role in areas such as web scraping, automated testing, and web application interaction. Until now, Puppeteer, for example, has been used for this. With the advent of AI, new opportunities are now opening up to make browser automation more intuitive and less maintenance-intensive - making way for Stagehand .
To illustrate how it works, we want to turn the front LED lights of my (crappy) Vodafone cable box second router - which, among other important functions, does not offer a direct API - on/off via the corresponding web interface. First, we install both tools in the command line (assuming Node \(\geq\) 23):
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Finally, we store our Vodafone password and our OpenAI API key in an .env file:
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With Puppeteer, the desired result can be achieved as follows:
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Stagehand, on the other hand, accepts commands written in natural language:
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Whether you want to scrape web pages, automatically fill out forms, or run tests for your web app, remote browser control can help. Integrating AI into remote browser control makes it possible to perform complex tasks with simple instructions, which speeds up development and makes maintenance easier. Especially when the DOM structure changes, stagehand scripts can be more robust and less maintenance-intensive.