Module 10 — Build and Extend · Lesson 10.2
The Remote Browser
A cloud browser you and the agent share, saved logins, and the sharing rule that protects you
~12 min
What you'll learn
- Start a session and browse inside Kavanah
- Save a login so the agent can reuse it, and explain what is actually stored
- Understand why a session from a saved login can never be shared
- Revoke a saved login, and manage the per-minute cost
Plenty of important systems have no API — a supplier portal, a government site, a legacy tool with a web interface and nothing else. The remote browser is how the agent works with those: a real browser in the cloud that both you and it can drive, with a login model designed so that Kavanah never sees your password.
Sessions
Open Browser under the Build group and start a new session. The live browser is embedded right in the page — type a URL and use it as you would any browser.
Sessions are private to you by default. They can be shared with the workspace so a teammate can drive the same browser, which is genuinely useful for walking someone through a process.
They cost money per minute while open, and they are reaped automatically after thirty minutes idle. Close a session when you are done rather than leaving it running — this is the single practical habit that keeps the feature cheap.
The browser runs on a connected Scrappy account, so connect Scrappy under Settings → Integrations first, with an API key carrying the browser scopes.
Saved logins
Here is the part worth reading carefully, because it is the security model.
You sign in to the site yourself, in the session, exactly as you normally would. The agent never sees or types your password.
Then you choose 'Save this login' and name it. What gets stored is not a password — it is the signed-in session, encrypted on the browser provider's side, usable only by you.
From then on, the agent can start sessions that are already signed in and work on your behalf on that site. That is the capability: it lets the agent operate a system that has no API without you ever handing it a credential.
Why a saved-login session cannot be shared
A session started from one of your saved logins can never be shared with the workspace.
The reason is direct: anyone you shared it with would be signed in as you. Not 'able to see what you see' — actually operating that site with your identity. There is no version of that which is safe to offer as a convenience toggle, so it is refused rather than warned about.
This is worth knowing so the restriction reads as protection rather than as a limitation. If you need a colleague to work on that site, they save their own login.
Revocation
Deleting a saved login revokes the stored session. That is the revocation path, and it cannot be undone.
Do it when you no longer need the agent working on that site, when you change your password there, or when anything about your account there changes.
And note the asymmetry with a normal credential: you cannot rotate a saved session, only delete and re-create it. So the maintenance shape is 'delete and sign in again' rather than 'update the password'.
Letting the agent use it
The remote browser is off for the agent by default. An admin turns on 'Remote browser' under Settings → AI Agent.
It is off because sessions spend real money per minute on your provider account — the same opt-in rule that governs every credit-spending feature in Kavanah.
Once on, ask the agent to do something on that site and it starts from your saved login. As with everything else, verify the outcome rather than the report the first few times.
And keep an eye on session lifetime. The single failure mode that costs money here is a session that was started and never closed, which the automatic reaping bounds but does not eliminate.
Set up the browser
- 1
Settings → Integrations, with an API key carrying the browser scopes. The browser runs on your account.
- 2
Start a session and sign in to a site yourself
Browser under Build. The agent never sees or types your password — you do the signing in.
- 3
What is stored is the signed-in session, encrypted, usable only by you. Not a password.
- 4
Enable the agent's access, then close your session
Settings → AI Agent, admin only. And close sessions when done — they bill per minute until released.
What to watch
- Open session minutes
- Total session time per week across the workspace.
- Healthy signal: Proportionate to what was accomplished. The usual waste is sessions left open, not sessions used.
- Saved-login inventory
- How many saved logins exist and whether each is still needed.
- Healthy signal: Short and reviewed. Each one is a standing ability for the agent to act as you on that site.
- Verified outcomes
- Whether agent actions in the browser are confirmed to have had their effect.
- Healthy signal: Always, at first. Browser work happens on systems Kavanah cannot otherwise inspect, so the report is all you have unless you look.
Key takeaways
- ·You sign in yourself; Kavanah never handles your password. What is saved is an encrypted signed-in session.
- ·A session started from a saved login can never be shared — sharing it would sign someone in as you.
- ·Deleting a saved login is the revocation path and cannot be undone; there is no rotation.
- ·Agent access is off by default because sessions bill per minute on your provider account.
- ·Close sessions when done; idle ones are reaped after thirty minutes but that is a backstop, not a plan.
Next: extending Kavanah with things other people built — the app marketplace.