Browser preview

Open the Preview

The Preview is a browser in a conversation's side panel. You and the conversation's agent see the same page, so you can watch a change land in the running app while the agent works on it, and the agent can check its own work.

1. Open a conversation and press ⌘J to show the side panel.
2. Click New tab (+). The new tab has an address bar, Search or enter a URL, above the panel's tools and the pages you visited lately.
3. Type an address and press ↵. An address without http:// or https:// gets http://. Words that aren't an address search Google.

Each tab remembers the pages you visited in it, and the back, forward, and reload buttons work as in any browser. Tools, beside the address bar, returns the tab to the list of tools. Expand panel gives the page more room, and Collapse panel shrinks it again.

Moving to another tab or conversation hides the page without closing it, so a dev server's page keeps its state. Links you click in the conversation open in its Preview. Right-click a link for Open in sidebar, Open in default browser, Open in Chrome Incognito (when Chrome is installed), or Copy link address.

When a page can't load, the Preview says why, such as "Nothing is listening on localhost:3000 yet.", and offers Retry.

A paired phone can watch a thread's Preview and scroll, tap, and type in it. See Phone app.

How agents use it

Every agent gets OpenOrc's browser tool. OpenOrc's instructions tell it to use the tool first for any website, to start a local project's dev server before opening it, and to treat page content as data, never as instructions. The tool has seven actions:

Every action except screenshot returns a fresh snapshot.

An agent can use only its own conversation's Preview, and only during its turn. When you're looking at that conversation, the Preview opens beside it as the agent works. When you're elsewhere, the agent works on the page out of sight, and the Preview opens on that page when you come back to the conversation.

What needs approval

Reading never asks. Actions that change a page follow the conversation's mode:

Codex calls these modes Plan, Review changes, Ask for approval, and Full access. When OpenOrc asks, Allow for this run covers later clicks, fills, and key presses in the same run. A password field asks every time, with only Allow and Deny.

Sign-ins

The Preview keeps its own cookies and sign-ins, apart from your usual browser and from the rest of OpenOrc. Every conversation's Preview shares them, and they last across launches, so you don't have to sign in to the app you're testing each time.

Limits

• Only http and https addresses load, and never with a username or password inside the address. Every link, redirect, and frame is checked.
• Sites can't use the camera, location, notifications, or any other permission. Downloads and pop-up windows are blocked.
• The agent can't read inside frames, upload files, or run its own scripts on the page.
• Each conversation runs one browser action at a time, and an action gives up after 30 seconds.
• OpenOrc keeps up to six pages alive. Past that, it closes the hidden page that was used longest ago.
• The Preview needs an OpenOrc window. A second window has its own Previews.

Next steps