Stagehand
AI-powered browser automation SDK built on Playwright
About Stagehand
Stagehand is an AI-native browser automation SDK for TypeScript and Node.js created by Browserbase. It provides simple, high-level primitives (act, extract, and observe) that turn fragile CSS/XPath selectors into resilient natural language actions powered by frontier LLMs. By integrating directly with Playwright, Stagehand allows developers to mix standard deterministic browser code with dynamic AI-driven actions, creating test suites and automation scripts that never break when CSS classes or DOM hierarchies change.
Stagehand uses hierarchical DOM filtering to send compact accessibility trees to LLMs, keeping latency low and execution deterministic. Its extract method parses unstructured page contents directly into Zod schemas, while act executes complex multi-step user actions like selecting dates in dynamic calendar pickers. Stagehand can run locally on standard Playwright instances or scale horizontally across Browserbase's managed browser cloud with anti-bot bypass and session recording.
Install via 'npm install @browserbasehq/stagehand' and initialize with your LLM API key.
Navigate to any URL using 'await stagehand.page.goto(url)'.
Call 'await stagehand.page.act("click on pricing and select annual billing")'.
Extract structured JSON data with Zod schemas using 'await stagehand.page.extract({ schema })'.
Export replay recordings and execution logs to CI/CD pipelines.
Capabilities & Features
Common Use Cases
resilient-web-scraping
synthetic-ui-testing
workflow-automation
ai-form-completion
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Stagehand AI?
Stagehand is an AI browser automation framework for TypeScript that uses LLMs to perform browser actions (act), extract structured data (extract), and suggest actions (observe) without hardcoded CSS selectors.
How does Stagehand differ from raw Playwright?
Stagehand wraps Playwright with AI primitives so automation scripts do not break when websites update their frontend layout or class names.
Is Stagehand open source?
Yes, Stagehand is open-source and can run on your local machine using standard Playwright.
Free Plan
Open-source Node.js/TypeScript SDK with local execution is completely free.
Paid Plan
Cloud-hosted browser infrastructure with stealth residential proxies available via Browserbase starting at $20/month.
Direct link · Verified & reader-supported
Pros & Cons
Natural language actions that eliminate fragile CSS selectors
Direct TypeScript integration with Zod schema validation
Built on top of industry-standard Playwright for hybrid deterministic/AI workflows
Native support for Browserbase cloud infrastructure and anti-captcha proxies
Fast execution speeds with optimized DOM pruning
Requires LLM API tokens for AI-guided actions
Node.js/TypeScript only (Python SDK in early preview)
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