actionbook

Table of Contents

• Why Actionbook?
• Quick Start
• Installation
• Examples
• Available Tools
• Development
• Contributing

Why Actionbook?

❌ Without Actionbook

Building reliable browser agents is difficult and expensive:

• Slow Execution: Agents waste time parsing full HTML pages to find elements.
• High Token Costs: Sending entire DOM trees to LLMs consumes massive context windows.
• Brittle Selectors: Updates to website UIs break hardcoded selectors and agent logic immediately.
• Hallucinations: LLMs often guess incorrect actions when faced with complex, unstructured DOMs.

✅ With Actionbook

Actionbook places up-to-date action manuals with the relevant DOM selectors directly into your LLM's context.

• 10x Faster: Agents access pre-computed "Action manuals" to know exactly what to do without exploring.
• 100x Token Savings: Instead of whole HTML page, agents receive only related DOM elements in concise, semantic JSON definitions.
• Resilient Automation: Action manuals are maintained and versioned. If a site changes, the manual is updated, not your agent.
• Universal Compatibility: Works with any LLM (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini) and any AI operator framework.

See how Actionbook enables an agent to complete an Airbnb search task 10x faster.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/9f896fe7-296a-44b3-8592-931a099612de

Quick Start

Get started with Actionbook in under 2 minutes:

Step 1: Install the CLI

npm install -g @actionbookdev/cli

The Rust-based CLI uses your existing system browser (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Arc, Chromium), so no extra browser install step is required.

Step 2: Use with any AI Agent

When working with any AI coding assistant (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), add this to your prompt:

Use Actionbook to understand and operate the web page.

The agent will automatically use the CLI to fetch action manuals and execute browser operations.

Step 3 (Optional): Add the Skill

For enhanced agent integration, add the Actionbook skill:

npx skills add actionbook/actionbook

Installation

Actionbook provides three integration methods:

• CLI (Recommended): Best for AI agents and general automation.
• MCP Server: For AI IDEs like Cursor and Claude.
• JavaScript SDK: For custom programmatic integration.

For detailed installation instructions, please visit the Installation Guide.

Examples

Explore real-world examples in the Examples Documentation.

Available Tools

Actionbook provides tools for searching and retrieving action manuals.

Check out the CLI Reference and MCP Tools Reference.

Stay tuned

Star Actionbook on Github to support and get latest information.

Join the community:

• Chat with us on Discord - Get help, share your agents, and discuss ideas
• Follow @ActionbookHQ on X - Product updates and announcements

Development

This is a monorepo using pnpm workspaces and Turborepo.

Prerequisites

• Node.js >= 18 (20+ recommended)
• pnpm >= 10
• PostgreSQL database (local or hosted like Neon / Supabase)

First-time Setup

1. Install dependencies:

pnpm install

2. Configure environment variables by copying .env.example to .env in the following packages:

   • services/db
   • apps/api-service
   • services/action-builder (optional, for recording)
   • services/knowledge-builder (optional, for knowledge extraction)

3. Run database migrations:

cd services/db && pnpm migrate

Start the Development Server

pnpm dev

Contributing

• Request a Website - Suggest websites you want Actionbook to index.
• Join the Waitlist - We are currently in private beta. Join if you are interested in contributing or using Actionbook.

License

See LICENSE for the license details.