Steel

Steel is an open-source browser API that lets you control fleets of browsers in the cloud.

Since Val Town can't run browsers locally, Steel provides a way to run browser automation tools like Puppeteer and Playwright by connecting to remote browsers hosted on Steel's infrastructure.

Quick start with Puppeteer#

1. Remix this Steel Puppeteer val
2. Get your free Steel API key
3. Add it to your Environment Variables (via left sidebar of your val) as STEEL_API_KEY
4. Click Run on the main.tsx file
5. View the output in the logs

Note

To use Puppeteer in Val Town, we recommend using the deno-puppeteer library – as is done in the above starter val.

Quick start with Playwright#

You can also use Playwright with Steel on Val Town.

Similar to the setup instructions above:

1. Remix this Steel Playwright val
2. Get your free Steel API key
3. Add it to your Environment Variables (via left sidebar of your val) as STEEL_API_KEY
4. Set TMPDIR to /tmp in your Environment Variables to avoid warnings
5. Click Run on the main.ts file
6. View the output in the logs

Note

We use a small script to handle Playwright's file system requirements in Val Town.

Also, each Steel API key supports only one active browser session. Starting a new session will close any existing session.