ZkSurfer AI: Full Browser Automation

ZkSurfer uses Zynapse API to control your browser and perform repetitive actions on your behalf. Currently it allows you to define ad-hoc instructions. In the future it will also support saved and scheduled workflows.

ZkSurfer is fully open-source, and we don't send any page contents or instructions to our servers.

Table of Contents

• ZkSurfer AI: Full Browser Automation
  • Table of Contents
  • Installing and Running
    • Installing the extension
    • Running in your browser
  • How it Works - The Action Cycle
  • Tech Stack
  • Resources

Installing and Running

Currently this extension is only available through this GitHub repo. We'll release it on the Chrome Web Store after adding features to increase its usability for a non-technical audience. To build and install the extension locally on your machine, follow the instructions below.

Installing the extension

1. Ensure you have Node.js >= 16.
2. Clone this repository
3. Run yarn to install the dependencies
4. Run yarn start to build the package
5. Load your extension on Chrome by doing the following:
   1. Navigate to chrome://extensions/
   2. Toggle Developer mode
   3. Click on Load unpacked extension
   4. Select the build folder that yarn start generated

Running in your browser

1. Once installed, the browser plugin will be available in two forms:
   1. As a Popup. Activate by pressing cmd+shift+y on mac or ctrl+shift+y on windows/linux, or by clicking the extension logo in your browser.
   2. As a devtools panel. Activate by first opening the browser's developer tools, then navigating to the ZkSurfer AI panel.
2. The next thing you need to do is create or access an existing [Zynapse API Key] and paste it in the provided box. This key will be stored securely in your browser, and will not be uploaded to a third party.

How it Works - The Action Cycle

1. ZkSurfer runs a content script on the webpage to pull the entire DOM. It simplifies the html it receives to only include interactive or semantically important elements, like buttons or text. It assigns an id to each interactive element. It then "templatizes" the DOM to reduce the token count even further.
2. ZkSurfer sends the simplified DOM, along with the user's instructions, to a selected LLM (currently Mistral is supported). ZkSurfer informs the LLM of two methods to interact with the webpage:
   1. click(id) - click on the interactive element associated with that id
   2. setValue(id, text) - focus on a text input, clear its existing text, and type the specified text into that input
3. When ZkSurfer gets a completion from the LLM, it parses the response for an action. The action cycle will end at this stage if any of the following conditions are met:
   1. The LLM believes the task is complete. Instead of an action, the LLM can return an indication that it believes the user's task is complete based on the state of the DOM and the action history up to this point.
   2. The user stopped the task's execution. The user can stop the LLM's execution at any time, without waiting for it to complete.
   3. There was an error. ZkSurfer's safety-first architecture causes it to automatically halt execution in the event of an unexpected response.
4. ZkSurfer executes the action using the [chrome.debugger API].
5. The action is added to the action history and ZkSurfer cycles back to step 1 and parses the updated DOM. All prior actions are sent to the LLM as part of the prompt used to determine the next action. ZkSurfer can currently complete a maximum of 50 actions for a single task, though in practice most tasks require fewer than 10 actions.

Tech Stack

Technology currently used by this extension:

• Chrome Extension Manifest V3
• React 18
• Webpack 5
• Webpack Dev Server 4
• React Hot Loader
• eslint-config-react-app
• Prettier
• TypeScript
• [Zustand] (https://zustand-demo.pmnd.rs/)
• Chakra UI

Resources

• Getting Started with Chrome Extensions