@steel-experiments/pi-steel

Steel Experiments — This is where we ship early, break things, and explore what's next for browser agents. Experiments, prototypes, bleeding-edge demos, and community contributions that push the boundaries of what's possible with web automation. Not production-ready. Definitely interesting.

Steel browser automation tools for the Pi coding agent.

This package publishes the Steel extension as a reusable Pi package so it can be installed directly into Pi or consumed by other runtimes such as Takopi-based wrappers.

Quick start

pi install npm:@steel-experiments/pi-steel

Then just ask Pi to browse:

> Go to hacker news and find the top story

Pi will use steel_navigate to open the page, steel_scrape to read the content, and return what it finds. All session management happens automatically.

Tools

Navigation

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | steel_navigate | Open a URL with automatic scheme normalization and retry logic | | steel_go_back | Navigate back in browser history | | steel_get_url | Read the current page URL | | steel_get_title | Read the current page title |

Content extraction

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | steel_scrape | Extract page content as text, markdown, or html | | steel_screenshot | Capture a screenshot artifact | | steel_pdf | Generate a PDF artifact | | steel_extract | Extract structured data using a JSON schema |

Interaction

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | steel_click | Click an element with captcha recovery | | steel_type | Type text into a field | | steel_fill_form | Fill multiple form fields at once | | steel_scroll | Scroll the page or a nested container | | steel_find_elements | Find interactive elements by selector | | steel_wait | Wait for an element to appear | | steel_computer | Low-level computer action with screenshot |

Session management

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | steel_pin_session | Keep the browser session alive across prompts | | steel_release_session | Close the browser and reset to default session mode |

steel_scrape defaults to text. Ask for markdown when headings, lists, and links matter. Ask for html only when raw DOM markup is actually needed.

steel_scroll can scroll the page or a nested container. For apps like Google Maps, pass a selector for the results pane instead of relying on window scrolling.

Install

Install into Pi as a package:

pi install npm:@steel-experiments/pi-steel

Or load it for a single run:

pi -e npm:@steel-experiments/pi-steel

For local development from this repo:

pi -e .

Session modes

Steel sessions have a lifecycle tied to how Pi uses them. The default works for most cases, but you can tune it:

| Mode | Behavior | |------|----------| | agent (default) | One session per Pi prompt, closed after agent_end | | session | Session stays alive until Pi switches or shuts down | | turn | Session closed after each Pi turn — aggressive, can break multi-step workflows |

Set the mode via environment variable:

STEEL_SESSION_MODE=session pi -e npm:@steel-experiments/pi-steel

You can also change session persistence at runtime with steel_pin_session and steel_release_session.

Configuration

Required

• Node.js 20+
• A Pi runtime that supports extensions
• Steel authentication via either:
  • STEEL_API_KEY, or
  • steel login config in ~/.config/steel/config.json

Environment variables

Connection

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | STEEL_BASE_URL | Steel API base URL | | STEEL_BROWSER_API_URL | Browser API endpoint | | STEEL_LOCAL_API_URL | Local Steel instance URL | | STEEL_API_URL | Alternative API URL | | STEEL_CONFIG_DIR | Custom config directory |

Session

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | STEEL_SESSION_MODE | Lifecycle mode: agent, session, or turn | | STEEL_SESSION_TIMEOUT_MS | Session timeout | | STEEL_SESSION_HEADLESS | Run browser headless | | STEEL_SESSION_REGION | Browser region | | STEEL_SESSION_PROFILE_ID | Persistent browser profile | | STEEL_SESSION_PERSIST_PROFILE | Save profile changes | | STEEL_SESSION_CREDENTIALS | Session credentials | | STEEL_SESSION_NAMESPACE | Session namespace |

Proxy

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | STEEL_USE_PROXY | Enable proxy | | STEEL_PROXY_URL | Proxy URL |

Captcha

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | STEEL_SOLVE_CAPTCHA | Enable captcha solving | | STEEL_CAPTCHA_MAX_RETRIES | Max captcha retry attempts | | STEEL_CAPTCHA_WAIT_MS | Captcha solve wait time | | STEEL_CAPTCHA_POLL_INTERVAL_MS | Captcha poll interval |

Tools

| Variable | Purpose | |----------|---------| | STEEL_TOOL_TIMEOUT_MS | Default tool timeout | | STEEL_NAVIGATE_RETRY_COUNT | Navigation retry attempts |

pi-steel reads Steel CLI config for auth and local API resolution, and it normalizes CLI-style API URLs such as http://localhost:3000/v1 to the SDK-compatible base URL form.

Development

npm install
npm run build
npm test

Publish preflight:

npm pack --dry-run

The package manifest in package.json exposes the compiled extension entrypoint via pi.extensions, which lets Pi load the package root directly after install.