Browser portals
A browser portal shows a live web page on the canvas. You can use the page yourself, and agents wired to the portal can read it, click and type in it. This page shows how to open a portal, wire it to agents, and choose how it keeps sign-ins.
Figure: A portal wired to an agent. The purple arrow shows where the agent clicked last.
Before you start
Portals use Chrome, Edge or Chromium, so one of them must be installed. Cuewire starts it in the background, without a window, on a browser profile of its own. It never uses your own browser profile, your history or your saved passwords.
If Cuewire finds none, the portal says
no Chrome or Edge was found; install one, or set CUEWIRE_BROWSER to its path. Install a
browser, or set the CUEWIRE_BROWSER variable to the browser’s program file.
Open a portal
- Right-click an empty spot on the canvas and choose New browser portal here. Or press
Ctrl+K(Cmd+Kon a Mac) and choose New browser portal. - Double-click the address strip at the top of the portal. Or right-click the portal and choose Edit address.
- Type an address and press
Enter. The page opens.
You can leave out https://. An address such as localhost:3000 opens with http://, so your
own dev server works. Any other address opens with https://.
An empty portal says No page yet. Double-click the address bar above to open one, or let an agent wired here open it.
Use the page
- Click the page to click on it. The portal takes the keyboard, so typing goes to the page.
- Scroll with the mouse wheel.
- Use the buttons at the left of the address strip to go back, forward or reload.
- Press
Shift+Escto give the keyboard back to the canvas.
Tip
Without a mouse, select the portal with
Taband pressEnterto type into the page.
Cuewire draws the page only while the portal is on screen and not zoomed far out. Deleting a portal closes its page.
Wire a portal to agents
Drag from an agent’s edge to the portal. Now that agent can drive the page. Agents that are not wired to the portal can’t reach it.
An agent drives the page with the cuewire portal command, which Cuewire teaches it. For example,
it can read the page, click, fill in forms, type, scroll, go back and take a screenshot:
cuewire portal snapshot Shop
cuewire portal click Shop @e12
cuewire portal fill Shop @e3 ada@example.com
The full list is in the cuewire CLI reference.
When an agent clicks or types in the page, a purple arrow glides to that spot and fades after a few seconds. So you can follow what the agent does. Your own clicks don’t show it.
Note
An orchestrator agent can open a portal by itself with
cuewire portal create. The new portal appears on the canvas, wired to that agent.
Sign-ins
Each portal keeps its own sign-ins, that is its cookies and site storage. They are separate from your browser and from other portals. You can share them instead. Right-click the portal and choose one:
| Choice | Who shares the sign-ins | How long they last |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-ins: this portal only | This portal alone. This is the default. | Not kept on disk |
| Sign-ins: shared in this workspace | Every portal in this workspace that shares | Until Cuewire’s background service restarts |
| Sign-ins: shared by all portals | Every portal that shares, in every workspace | Kept on disk, across restarts |
The choice in use has a ✓. Changing it reloads the portal at its address.
Figure: Sign-ins for one portal, for a workspace, or for all portals.
Tip
Sign in to your app once in a portal that shares in the workspace. Every other portal of the workspace that shares is signed in too.
Figure: A portal’s menu. The tick shows how this portal keeps its sign-ins.
Popups
When a page opens a popup, such as a sign-in window, the popup appears as a portal of its own
beside the first one. It is named after the first portal, for example Shop #2. It has the same
sign-ins and is wired to the same agents. When the popup closes itself, its portal goes away.
Figure: A sign-in popup gets a portal of its own, wired to the same agent.
This happens while the portal is on screen in the Cuewire window that drives the project. At other times the popup opens inside its portal, and agents work with it there. That is the case when the app is closed, the portal is scrolled out of view, or another computer drives a remote project.
Tabs
A portal can have up to 10 tabs. All tabs share the portal’s sign-ins.
- Right-click the portal and choose New tab.
- Numbered chips appear on the address strip, with a + for another tab. Click a chip to show that tab.
- To close the tab you see, right-click the portal and choose Close tab 2 (the number is the tab’s). You can’t close the first tab: it is the portal’s own page.
Agents work with the tab you see. They can also open, switch and close tabs themselves.
What’s next
- Agents working together: wire agents to each other, to notes and to portals.
cuewireCLI reference: everycuewire portalcommand.- Files and the editor: see the code behind the page.