steel-dev__cli/examples/steel-playwright-python-starter

Steel + Playwright for Python Starter

This template shows you how to use Steel with Playwright in Python to run browser automations in the cloud. It includes session management, error handling, and a basic example you can customize.

Installation

Clone this repository, navigate to the examples/steel-playwright-python-starter, and install dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/steel-dev/steel-cookbook
cd steel-cookbook/examples/steel-playwright-python-starter

# Create and activate virtual environment (recommended)
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows use: venv\Scripts\activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

Quick start

The example script in main.py shows you how to:

• Create and manage a Steel browser session
• Connect Playwright to the session
• Navigate to a website (Hacker News in this example)
• Extract data from the page (top 5 stories)
• Handle errors and cleanup properly
• View your live session in Steel's session viewer

To run it:

1. Create a .env file in the examples/steel-playwright-python-starter directory:

STEEL_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

2. Replace your_api_key_here with your Steel API key. Don't have one? Get a free key at app.steel.dev/settings/api-keys

3. From the same directory, run the command:

python main.py

Writing your automation

Find this section in main.py:

# ============================================================
# Your Automations Go Here!
# ============================================================

# Example automation (you can delete this)
page.goto('https://news.ycombinator.com')
# ... rest of example code

You can replace the code here with whatever automation scripts you want to run.

Configuration

The template includes common Steel configurations you can enable:

session = client.sessions.create(
    use_proxy=True,              # Use Steel's proxy network
    solve_captcha=True,          # Enable CAPTCHA solving
    session_timeout=1800000,     # 30 minute timeout (default: 5 mins)
    user_agent='custom-ua',      # Custom User-Agent
)

Error handling

The template includes error handling and cleanup:

try:
    # Your automation code
finally:
    # Cleanup runs even if there's an error
    if browser:
        browser.close()
    if session:
        client.sessions.release(session.id)

Support

• Steel Documentation
• API Reference
• Discord Community