---
title: "Legacy Browser Tasks"
sidebar_label: "Legacy Browser Tasks"
description: "Create, monitor, cancel, and retrieve results from ad hoc browser-use tasks through the Gobii API."
---

Developers can create single, ad hoc browser-use tasks that do _not_ run continuously. Use this API when you need a one-off browser automation job rather than a persistent Gobii/agent with a timeline.

For example, "Get the current weather in Washington, DC" can be a browser task. "Send me a weather report every weekday at 7pm" should be a persistent agent.

### Browser-use instances

When working with Tasks, the developer may elect to create a browser-use profile that is preserved to provide a consistent browser environment between tasks. If this is not required, a user may simply request a task be performed without reference to a browser-use profile. See examples below.

### Asynchronous vs synchronous

**NOTE:** We _strongly_ encourage issuing requests as asynchronous requests.

Tasks can be synchronous in nature, or asynchronous. A task request without a `wait` parameter is asynchronous automatically. You will receive a response with a task ID. Preferably, the developer will supply a webhook URL to receive results at. Alternatively, you may periodically check the task status via the REST API. When using Gobii Cloud, we ask that you self-limit status checks to no more than once every 30 seconds.

To operate as a synchronous task, send the `wait` key with an integer for the number of seconds to wait for a response (maximum time of 900 seconds). The request will either receive a response or timeout. In the latter case, you may `GET` a list of your tasks, and see the result when completed.
