Most AI browsers hide what the agent is doing. I wanted to see it happen live, and run it locally. So I built one.

The black box issue with cloud agents is so frustrating. There's nothing worse than waiting two minutes for a task to finish, only to realize the agent got stuck on a cookie banner on step one haha. Watching it perform DOM actions live feels way more like pair-programming with a virtual assistant. Smart move putting this out early for feedback.

Showing the agent's steps live is the right call — the trust problem with agent browsers is that you only find out something went wrong after it's already submitted a form. Two things I'd prioritize before more features: an undo/confirm gate on irreversible actions (payments, sends, deletes), and a visible log you can copy out when the run goes sideways, since that's what people paste into bug reports. Shipping desktop/local software as a solo dev also means distribution is your real bottleneck, not the model — worth planning that early.

This resonates a lot with something I've been thinking about. Transparency into what an agent is actually doing step-by-step feels like it matters even more than the final output being correct, especially once agents start taking real actions instead of just generating text. Curious whether you're logging the full decision trace anywhere, or is it purely a live view that disappears after the session ends?

Trust needs more than visibility. I would give users a simple permission ladder: observe, suggest, execute reversible actions, and require approval for irreversible actions such as sending, paying, deleting, or changing an account. Pair that with a receipt showing inputs, actions, and outcomes. The local-first approach is compelling, but clear boundaries are what make people comfortable delegating real work.

Being able to actually see what the agent is doing sounds way more useful than another black box. Especially when it fails and you’re trying to understand which step went wrong.

What stands out to me is the visibility aspect. I think the biggest barrier to wider agent adoption isn't necessarily capability, but trust; especially when an agent can take actions that are difficult to reverse.

Being able to watch the agent work and step in before a risky action could make a big difference. I'd be interested to see how you handle permissions for things like purchases, account changes, or submitting forms. A clear “approval required” layer could be just as important as the visual interface itself.

Visibility gets you the demo; it doesn't get you the daily. Watching costs attention linearly — the first week you watch every step, and the moment the agent is actually useful you stop, which is exactly when you'd want to be looking. What made me comfortable handing over real tasks was auditable after-the-fact receipts (what it called, with what arguments, what came back) plus a hard gate on the irreversible subset: send, pay, delete. Everything else runs unattended. Live view is for debugging, receipts are for trust.

One thing worth designing while it's still cheap: a local browser on the user's real profile inherits every session cookie they have, so your page representation is the sharp edge. If a snapshot fires right after a login form is filled, the password field's value lands in the model's context verbatim. Mask on serialization, not on render.

On the 32x — is that measured against raw DOM or against screenshots? And does it hold once the conversation is long, or is the page the small half of the bill by step 20?

The “watch it happen” part is a clear contrast with agents that operate out of sight. Curious which part people react to most when they see Pickle in action.