---
title: Overview
description: The OpenBrowse browser agent can read, click, navigate, execute code, and connect to external services.
---

import { Callout } from "fumadocs-ui/components/callout";

The OpenBrowse agent is an AI-powered browser automation tool that runs in your side panel. It can interact with web pages, manage tabs, remember context across sessions, and connect to external services via MCP.

<Callout type="info">
  Press `⌥I` (or `Alt+I` on Windows/Linux) or click the OpenBrowse extension icon to open the agent side panel.
</Callout>

## How it works

When you give the agent a task, it uses a loop of thought and action. It reasons about what you want to achieve, looks at the current page (using tools like `snapshot`), and then takes actions (like `clickElement` or `navigate`) to fulfill the request.

Here's an example of what you can ask:
> "Find the cheapest full-size mechanical keyboard on this page and add it to my cart."

The agent will:
1. **Analyze** the page to find the list of products.
2. **Reason** about which product matches your criteria.
3. **Execute** a click on the "Add to cart" button.

## Capabilities

The agent is equipped with a comprehensive set of [Tools](/docs/tools), allowing it to:

- **Browse** — Read page content, take screenshots, scroll, navigate.
- **Interact** — Click elements, type text, select tabs.
- **Execute** — Run JavaScript or Python in sandboxed environments.
- **Read & write files** — Operate on a per-conversation virtual [Workspace](/docs/workspace) using `Read`, `Write`, `Edit`, `Glob`, `Grep`, and `LS`.
- **Remember** — Persistent memory across conversations (see [Memory](/docs/memory)).
- **Plan** — Create and manage structured to-do lists for complex, multi-step tasks.
- **Use skills** — Invoke installed [Skills](/docs/skills) to apply curated workflows on demand.
- **Connect** — MCP connectors for GitHub, Linear, Slack, and more (see [Connectors](/docs/connectors)).

## Long conversations & compaction

Once a conversation grows large enough to threaten the model's context window, OpenBrowse automatically compacts the older history. A compaction event is inserted inline as a regular chat message — a synthetic "what did we do so far?" turn followed by a summary — so you keep full visibility into what was condensed.

The full message list stays in the UI; only the LLM sees the compacted view (head dropped, summary substituted, oversized tool outputs pruned). Compaction runs at the next safe step boundary during multi-tool runs, and Stop cancels any in-flight summarization cleanly.

## Best practices

- **Be specific:** The more context you provide, the better the agent can fulfill your request.
- **Use Spaces:** The agent is aware of your current Space and its context. If you are in your "Work" space, it will prefer tools and memory associated with that space.
- **Watch the tools:** The agent explains what tools it's calling. You have full visibility into its actions.
