actionbook
Pre-verified page actions and selectors for website automation without runtime discovery.
- Search a library of documented page interactions by task intent, then retrieve structured DOM details with tested CSS selectors ready for browser commands
- Browser commands cover navigation, form filling, clicking, text extraction, screenshots, and waiting for page changes
- Handles login walls by pausing automation and asking the user to complete authentication manually in the same session
- Daemon mode (Unix/CDP) maintains a persistent WebSocket connection per profile, eliminating per-command connection overhead
- Falls back to live accessibility tree snapshots when selectors become outdated due to website changes
When to Use This Skill
Activate when the user:
- Needs to do anything on a website ("Send a LinkedIn message", "Book an Airbnb", "Search Google for...")
- Asks how to interact with a site ("How do I post a tweet?", "How to apply on LinkedIn?")
- Wants to fill out forms, click buttons, navigate, search, filter, or browse on a specific site
- Wants to take a screenshot of a web page or monitor changes
- Builds browser-based AI agents, web scrapers, or E2E tests for external websites
- Automates repetitive web tasks (data entry, form submission, content posting)
- Needs to operate multiple websites or tabs concurrently
How It Works
Actionbook provides up-to-date action manuals for the modern web. Action manuals tell agents exactly what to do on a page — no parsing, no guessing.
Why this matters:
- 10x faster — action manuals provide selectors and page structure upfront. No snapshot-per-step loop needed.
- Accurate — handles SPAs, streaming components, dropdowns, date pickers, and dynamic content reliably.
- Concurrent — stateless architecture with explicit
--session/--tab. Operate dozens of tabs in parallel.
The workflow:
- Start a browser session
- Navigate to the target page
- Snapshot to get the page structure with element refs
- Automate using refs from the snapshot
Run actionbook <command> --help for full usage and examples of any command.
Browser Automation
Every browser command is stateless — pass --session and --tab explicitly. No "current tab" — you can run commands on any session/tab in parallel.
Start a session
actionbook browser start --set-session-id s1
Core workflow: snapshot, act, wait
actionbook browser goto <url> --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser snapshot --session s1 --tab t1 # Get page structure with refs
actionbook browser fill @e3 "text" --session s1 --tab t1 # Use refs from snapshot
actionbook browser click @e7 --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser wait navigation --session s1 --tab t1 # Wait for page load
Snapshot refs
snapshot labels every element with a ref (e.g. @e3, @e7). Use these refs as selectors in any command — they are the recommended way to target elements.
Refs are stable across snapshots — if the element stays the same, the ref stays the same. This lets you chain multiple commands without re-snapshotting after every step.
Command categories
All commands support --help for full usage and examples.
| Category | Key commands | Help |
|---|---|---|
| Session | start, close, restart, list-sessions, status |
actionbook browser start --help |
| Tab | new-tab, close-tab, list-tabs |
actionbook browser new-tab --help |
| Navigation | goto, back, forward, reload |
actionbook browser goto --help |
| Observation | snapshot, text, html, value, screenshot, title, url |
actionbook browser snapshot --help |
| Interaction | click, fill, type, press, select, hover, scroll |
actionbook browser click --help |
| Wait | wait element, wait navigation, wait network-idle, wait condition |
actionbook browser wait element --help |
| Cookies | cookies list, cookies get, cookies set, cookies delete, cookies clear |
actionbook browser cookies list --help |
| Storage | local-storage list|get|set|delete|clear, session-storage ... |
actionbook browser local-storage get --help |
| Logs | logs console, logs errors |
actionbook browser logs console --help |
| Query | query one|all|nth|count |
actionbook browser query --help |
Full command reference: command-reference.md
Example: End-to-End
User request: "Find a room next week in SF on Airbnb"
actionbook browser start --set-session-id s1
actionbook browser goto "https://airbnb.com" --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser snapshot --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser fill @e3 "San Francisco" --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser click @e7 --session s1 --tab t1
actionbook browser wait navigation --session s1 --tab t1
Selectors
Selectors should come from actionbook browser snapshot — not from prior knowledge or memory. Always snapshot first to get current refs, then use those refs to interact with the page.
Login Page Handling
When you hit a login/auth wall (sign-in page, password prompt, MFA/OTP, CAPTCHA, account chooser):
- Pause automation and keep the current browser session open (same tab/profile/cookies).
- Ask the user to complete login manually in that same browser window.
- After user confirms login is done, continue in the same session.
- If the post-login page is different, run
actionbook browser snapshotto get the new page structure before continuing.
Do not switch tools just because a login page appears.
References
| Reference | Description |
|---|---|
| command-reference.md | Complete command reference with all flags and options |
| authentication.md | Login flows, OAuth, 2FA handling, session persistence |