Recording mode

Status

tooldrop record and the Chrome extension work today. On a site with a saved login, tooldrop record opens its browser already signed in; the extension records in your own Chrome, with your sign-ins.

Instead of letting a model explore a site, do the task once yourself while toolDrop records it. The build then compiles exactly what you did. It is faster, cheaper and far more reliable with local models, so toolDrop prefers recordings whenever they exist.

What is recorded

• The clicks, typing and picks you make, with several ways to find each element again (by role and name, test id, text and CSS).
• The table, list or text you mark as the data.
• Never what you type into a password field.

The build replays your steps in its own browser and records the network itself, so the recording stays small and holds no cookies.

After you stop, mark which typed values are inputs (a date range, a status) so the tool takes them as arguments instead of repeating your exact values.

Record from the terminal

tooldrop record http://127.0.0.1:4101 --task "List my invoices, filtered by status"

This opens a browser window with a small toolDrop bar:

1. Do the task once: search, filter, open pages. Navigate by clicking; an address typed into the bar is not recorded.
2. Click Mark data, then the table or list you want.
3. Click Finish, then pick and name the inputs in the terminal.

The recording is saved under ~/.tooldrop/recordings, and the terminal prints the tooldrop build command that uses it. --out file.json also writes it to a file you can upload with POST /v1/recordings. The window uses a fresh browser profile, so a site that blocks automated browsers may need the extension instead.

Record with the Chrome extension

The extension records in your everyday Chrome, with the sign-ins you already have. It makes the same recordings as tooldrop record.

1. Get the extension: download tooldrop-recorder.zip from the latest release and unzip it, or build it from source with pnpm --filter @tooldrop/extension build (it lands in apps/extension/dist).
2. Open chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode, and choose Load unpacked. Select the unzipped or dist folder.
3. On the site, click the toolDrop icon and press Start recording. Do the task, navigating by clicking.
4. In the toolDrop bar on the page, click Mark data, then the table or list, then Finish.
5. A review page opens. Tick the values the tool should ask for on every call, say what the tool does, and upload. Uploading needs your server's address and an API key from tooldrop keys create. Build the tool now starts the build; Download the recording saves a file for tooldrop build --recording.

The recording goes to your own toolDrop server (by default http://127.0.0.1:3000) and nowhere else. The build replays it in toolDrop's own browser, so on a site that needs a sign-in, save the login first with tooldrop logins add. Installing from the Chrome Web Store is optional; "load unpacked" is free and always works. See the Recorder privacy policy.

Then build from it

Pass the recording to a build: the agent's build_tool call takes a recording_id, and so does POST /v1/builds.