Automation Steps and Targeted Screenshots

What are automation steps?

Automation steps let you interact with a page before the screenshot is taken. This is useful for logging in, dismissing popups, filling forms, or navigating to the right state.

Available step commands

• click — click an element by CSS selector
• type — type text into an input field
• wait — wait a fixed number of milliseconds
• waitForSelector — wait for a CSS selector to appear in the DOM
• scroll — scroll to a position or element
• screenshot — take an intermediate screenshot

Example: Login before screenshot

{
  "url": "https://example.com/dashboard",
  "steps": [
    { "action": "click", "selector": "#login-btn" },
    { "action": "type", "selector": "#email", "value": "user@example.com" },
    { "action": "type", "selector": "#password", "value": "secret" },
    { "action": "click", "selector": "[type=submit]" },
    { "action": "waitForSelector", "selector": ".dashboard-header" }
  ]
}

Targeted element screenshots

Use the target parameter with a CSS selector to capture only a specific element on the page instead of the full viewport.

Clean output helpers

• hide_popups=true — automatically dismisses cookie banners and GDPR notices
• hide_ads=true — hides common ad containers