Production Checklist for Browser Agents

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Define session ownership, authentication, action policy, evidence, retries, cleanup, and data retention before a browser agent handles production work.

A production browser agent needs explicit ownership for the session, identity, permitted actions, evidence, and cleanup. Complete this checklist for one workflow before increasing traffic.

Session lifecycle

  • Every session is tied to a task and owner.
  • The timeout is set to the shortest useful duration.
  • Session creation failures use bounded backoff.
  • The worker releases the session in a finally path.
  • Stale-session cleanup is monitored separately from task success.

Authentication and state

  • Credentials are stored outside prompts and source control.
  • Credential namespaces separate identities and environments.
  • Profile IDs are authorized like authenticated browser state.
  • The workflow verifies a logged-in marker before acting.
  • Expired authentication routes to reauthentication or review.

Action policy

  • Allowed actions are defined independently of the prompt.
  • External or destructive actions require explicit approval.
  • Model-produced coordinates and values are validated.
  • Untrusted page text cannot change system-level policy.
  • Each action has a success assertion.

Evidence and debugging

  • Task, model-response, and Steel session IDs are stored together.
  • Operators can access the live viewer through authenticated tooling.
  • Failed runs retain replay, action logs, and relevant files.
  • Evidence access and retention match the data classification.
  • Retries remain linked to the original attempt.

Reliability

  • Metrics separate session, navigation, authentication, action, and output failures.
  • Completion without retry is tracked by workflow.
  • Human intervention has structured reason codes.
  • Concurrency and request limits are monitored from current account configuration.
  • A retry changes a known condition or stops.

Data handling

  • Uploaded and downloaded files are scoped to a task or tenant.
  • Sensitive screenshots and recordings have an owner and retention period.
  • Secrets and access-bearing viewer URLs are redacted from logs.
  • Deletion covers profiles, credentials, files, and copied evidence.
  • Target-site authorization and usage policy have been reviewed.

Go-live test

Run one representative task through four outcomes:

  1. normal completion;
  2. target-site or navigation failure;
  3. authentication expiry;
  4. human rejection at an approval boundary.

The workflow is ready when each outcome ends with a released session, a stable result state, and enough evidence to explain what happened.

Use the session lifecycle guide to verify the create, timeout, and release behavior in your implementation.