Quickstart

This guide takes you from zero to a working browser automation in about five minutes. It assumes you've completed Installation.

1. Get ready

omniscout daemon start

2. Get an answer from the web

answer is the fastest way to a fact — it searches the web and answers with sources:

omniscout answer "what is the capital of france"

Want just the ranked links instead? Use search:

omniscout search "local-first AI agents" --limit 5

See Search & answer for sources, depth modes, and answer engines.

3. Extract a page

extract turns any URL into clean Markdown — no browser needed:

omniscout extract https://example.com

Need specific fields as JSON instead of Markdown? See Extraction.

4. Drive the browser

Four commands cover most browser work: navigate to a page, snapshot its interactive elements, act on a @eN ref, and screenshot the result:

omniscout browser navigate https://news.ycombinator.com
omniscout browser snapshot --refs-only
omniscout browser click '@e3'
omniscout browser screenshot --out /tmp/hn.png

The key rule: snapshot returns @eN refs, and every action targets a ref. Re-snapshot after each navigation — refs go stale when the page changes. See Browser automation for the full action vocabulary.

5. Make output machine-readable

Every command supports --json, which agents should always use:

omniscout --json answer "What is local-first software?"
export OMNISCOUT_JSON=1   # same effect for every command

6. Clean up

omniscout browser close --all

Cheat sheet

omniscout daemon start                              # once per machine
omniscout answer "..."                              # Q&A with citations
omniscout extract https://example.com               # page → Markdown
omniscout browser navigate <url>                    # open a page
omniscout browser snapshot --refs-only              # list @eN refs
omniscout browser click '@e3'                       # act on a ref
omniscout browser screenshot --out /tmp/out.png     # capture state
omniscout browser close --all                       # clean up

Next steps

Search & answer — sources, depth, answer modes
Browser automation — forms, tabs, network, login, CAPTCHA
Examples & recipes — copy-paste workflows

Quickstart

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