hermes-agent/website/docs/user-guide/skills/optional/web-development/web-development-page-agent.md
Teknium b0ef72a8a0 docs(skills): bring 69 skill descriptions under the 60-char authoring budget
Every SKILL.md description over 60 chars was silently truncated to
57 chars + '...' in the system-prompt skill index
(extract_skill_description, agent/skill_utils.py), destroying the
routing signal for 69 of 179 skills — some descriptions ran to
1,005 chars.

Rewrites follow the authoring standard: <=60 chars, one sentence,
ends with a period, trigger front-loaded, no marketing words, no
skill-name repetition. Excess detail already lives in each skill's
body.

Includes the touchdesigner-mcp trim from PR #32361 (credit:
@JeliTron) and aligns with the router-precision direction of PR
#48780 (@John-Lussier). Docs catalogs + per-skill pages regenerated
via website/scripts/generate-skill-docs.py.

Co-authored-by: JeliTron <287797501+JeliTron@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-07-23 21:07:16 -07:00

9 KiB

title sidebar_label description
Page Agent — Embed an in-page natural-language GUI copilot in web apps Page Agent Embed an in-page natural-language GUI copilot in web apps

{/* This page is auto-generated from the skill's SKILL.md by website/scripts/generate-skill-docs.py. Edit the source SKILL.md, not this page. */}

Page Agent

Embed an in-page natural-language GUI copilot in web apps.

Skill metadata

Source Optional — install with hermes skills install official/web-development/page-agent
Path optional-skills/web-development/page-agent
Version 1.0.0
Author Hermes Agent
License MIT
Platforms linux, macos, windows
Tags web, javascript, agent, browser, gui, alibaba, embed, copilot, saas

Reference: full SKILL.md

:::info The following is the complete skill definition that Hermes loads when this skill is triggered. This is what the agent sees as instructions when the skill is active. :::

page-agent

alibaba/page-agent (https://github.com/alibaba/page-agent, 17k+ stars, MIT) is an in-page GUI agent written in TypeScript. It lives inside a webpage, reads the DOM as text (no screenshots, no multi-modal LLM), and executes natural-language instructions like "click the login button, then fill username as John" against the current page. Pure client-side — the host site just includes a script and passes an OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint.

When to use this skill

Load this skill when a user wants to:

  • Ship an AI copilot inside their own web app (SaaS, admin panel, B2B tool, ERP, CRM) — "users on my dashboard should be able to type 'create invoice for Acme Corp and email it' instead of clicking through five screens"
  • Modernize a legacy web app without rewriting the frontend — page-agent drops on top of existing DOM
  • Add accessibility via natural language — voice / screen-reader users drive the UI by describing what they want
  • Demo or evaluate page-agent against a local (Ollama) or hosted (Qwen, OpenAI, OpenRouter) LLM
  • Build interactive training / product demos — let an AI walk a user through "how to submit an expense report" live in the real UI

When NOT to use this skill

  • User wants Hermes itself to drive a browser → use Hermes' built-in browser tool (Browserbase / Camofox). page-agent is the opposite direction.
  • User wants cross-tab automation without embedding → use Playwright, browser-use, or the page-agent Chrome extension
  • User needs visual grounding / screenshots → page-agent is text-DOM only; use a multimodal browser agent instead

Prerequisites

  • Node 22.13+ or 24+, npm 10+ (docs claim 11+ but 10.9 works fine)
  • An OpenAI-compatible LLM endpoint: Qwen (DashScope), OpenAI, Ollama, OpenRouter, or anything speaking /v1/chat/completions
  • Browser with devtools (for debugging)

Path 1 — 30-second demo via CDN (no install)

Fastest way to see it work. Uses alibaba's free testing LLM proxy — for evaluation only, subject to their terms.

Add to any HTML page (or paste into the devtools console as a bookmarklet):

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/page-agent@1.8.0/dist/iife/page-agent.demo.js" crossorigin="true"></script>

A panel appears. Type an instruction. Done.

Bookmarklet form (drop into bookmarks bar, click on any page):

javascript:(function(){var s=document.createElement('script');s.src='https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/page-agent@1.8.0/dist/iife/page-agent.demo.js';document.head.appendChild(s);})();

Path 2 — npm install into your own web app (production use)

Inside an existing web project (React / Vue / Svelte / plain):

npm install page-agent

Wire it up with your own LLM endpoint — never ship the demo CDN to real users:

import { PageAgent } from 'page-agent'

const agent = new PageAgent({
    model: 'qwen3.5-plus',
    baseURL: 'https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1',
    apiKey: process.env.LLM_API_KEY,   // never hardcode
    language: 'en-US',
})

// Show the panel for end users:
agent.panel.show()

// Or drive it programmatically:
await agent.execute('Click submit button, then fill username as John')

Provider examples (any OpenAI-compatible endpoint works):

Provider baseURL model
Qwen / DashScope https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1 qwen3.5-plus
OpenAI https://api.openai.com/v1 gpt-4o-mini
Ollama (local) http://localhost:11434/v1 qwen3:14b
OpenRouter https://openrouter.ai/api/v1 anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.6

Key config fields (passed to new PageAgent({...})):

  • model, baseURL, apiKey — LLM connection
  • language — UI language (en-US, zh-CN, etc.)
  • Allowlist and data-masking hooks exist for locking down what the agent can touch — see https://alibaba.github.io/page-agent/ for the full option list

Security. Don't put your apiKey in client-side code for a real deployment — proxy LLM calls through your backend and point baseURL at your proxy. The demo CDN exists because alibaba runs that proxy for evaluation.

Path 3 — clone the source repo (contributing, or hacking on it)

Use this when the user wants to modify page-agent itself, test it against arbitrary sites via a local IIFE bundle, or develop the browser extension.

git clone https://github.com/alibaba/page-agent.git
cd page-agent
npm ci              # exact lockfile install (or `npm i` to allow updates)

Create .env in the repo root with an LLM endpoint. Example:

LLM_MODEL_NAME=gpt-4o-mini
LLM_API_KEY=sk-...
LLM_BASE_URL=https://api.openai.com/v1

Ollama flavor:

LLM_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434/v1
LLM_API_KEY=NA
LLM_MODEL_NAME=qwen3:14b

Common commands:

npm start           # docs/website dev server
npm run build       # build every package
npm run dev:demo    # serve IIFE bundle at http://localhost:5174/page-agent.demo.js
npm run dev:ext     # develop the browser extension (WXT + React)
npm run build:ext   # build the extension

Test on any website using the local IIFE bundle. Add this bookmarklet:

javascript:(function(){var s=document.createElement('script');s.src=`http://localhost:5174/page-agent.demo.js?t=${Math.random()}`;s.onload=()=>console.log('PageAgent ready!');document.head.appendChild(s);})();

Then: npm run dev:demo, click the bookmarklet on any page, and the local build injects. Auto-rebuilds on save.

Warning: your .env LLM_API_KEY is inlined into the IIFE bundle during dev builds. Don't share the bundle. Don't commit it. Don't paste the URL into Slack. (Verified: grepping the public dev bundle returns the literal values from .env.)

Repo layout (Path 3)

Monorepo with npm workspaces. Key packages:

Package Path Purpose
page-agent packages/page-agent/ Main entry with UI panel
@page-agent/core packages/core/ Core agent logic, no UI
@page-agent/mcp packages/mcp/ MCP server (beta)
packages/llms/ LLM client
packages/page-controller/ DOM ops + visual feedback
packages/ui/ Panel + i18n
packages/extension/ Chrome/Firefox extension
packages/website/ Docs + landing site

Verifying it works

After Path 1 or Path 2:

  1. Open the page in a browser with devtools open
  2. You should see a floating panel. If not, check the console for errors (most common: CORS on the LLM endpoint, wrong baseURL, or a bad API key)
  3. Type a simple instruction matching something visible on the page ("click the Login link")
  4. Watch the Network tab — you should see a request to your baseURL

After Path 3:

  1. npm run dev:demo prints Accepting connections at http://localhost:5174
  2. curl -I http://localhost:5174/page-agent.demo.js returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK with Content-Type: application/javascript
  3. Click the bookmarklet on any site; panel appears

Pitfalls

  • Demo CDN in production — don't. It's rate-limited, uses alibaba's free proxy, and their terms forbid production use.
  • API key exposure — any key passed to new PageAgent({apiKey: ...}) ships in your JS bundle. Always proxy through your own backend for real deployments.
  • Non-OpenAI-compatible endpoints fail silently or with cryptic errors. If your provider needs native Anthropic/Gemini formatting, use an OpenAI-compatibility proxy (LiteLLM, OpenRouter) in front.
  • CSP blocks — sites with strict Content-Security-Policy may refuse to load the CDN script or disallow inline eval. In that case, self-host from your origin.
  • Restart dev server after editing .env in Path 3 — Vite only reads env at startup.
  • Node version — the repo declares ^22.13.0 || >=24. Node 20 will fail npm ci with engine errors.
  • npm 10 vs 11 — docs say npm 11+; npm 10.9 actually works fine.

Reference