browser-automation

Browser Automation

Category: Engineering Domain: Web Automation

Overview

The Browser Automation skill provides tools for building robust web automation, checking scripts for bot detection signatures, generating form automation code, and creating web scraping solutions with rate limiting and best practices.

Clarify First

Before generating automation, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• Target site & task — the URL and exactly what to automate or scrape (drives the generated selectors and flow)
• Which tool — audit an existing script, build form automation, or generate a scraper (selects anti_detection_checker.py vs form_automation_builder.py vs scraping_toolkit.py)
• Politeness strategy & authorization — polite vs aggressive, robots.txt compliance, and that you are permitted to automate this target (sets request delays and backoff in the generated code)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

Quick Start

# Check automation script for detection signatures
python scripts/anti_detection_checker.py --file ./my_scraper.py

# Generate form automation code from HTML
python scripts/form_automation_builder.py --url https://example.com/form --output form_script.py

# Generate scraping code with rate limiting
python scripts/scraping_toolkit.py --url https://example.com --strategy polite --output scraper.py

Tools Overview

Tool	Purpose	Key Flags
anti_detection_checker.py	Audit automation code for bot detection signatures	--file, --format
form_automation_builder.py	Generate form filling scripts from HTML analysis	--url, --html-file, --output
scraping_toolkit.py	Generate web scraping code with rate limiting	--url, --strategy, --output

Workflows

Build Reliable Scraper

1. Analyze target with scraping_toolkit.py to generate base code
2. Check generated code with anti_detection_checker.py
3. Address any detection signatures found
4. Test with progressive rate limiting

Automate Form Submission

1. Provide form HTML to form_automation_builder.py
2. Review generated script for field mappings
3. Customize data sources and validation
4. Run anti-detection check on final script

Reference Documentation

• Browser Automation Guide - Anti-detection techniques, rate limiting strategies, ethical scraping practices

Common Patterns

Polite Scraping

• Respect robots.txt directives
• Implement exponential backoff on errors
• Use 2-5 second delays between requests
• Identify your bot with a descriptive User-Agent
• Cache responses to minimize repeat requests

Anti-Detection Best Practices

• Rotate User-Agent strings realistically
• Randomize request timing (avoid fixed intervals)
• Handle cookies and sessions properly
• Avoid headless browser fingerprinting tells