# E2E browser mode (current + next)

## Current mode (manual / assisted)

Short-term E2E is **manual** and uses a terminal browser for fast feedback:

- **Carbonyl** for previewing the **test** URL without a GUI browser:
  - script: `scripts/open-carbonyl-preview-test.sh`
  - per project config: `projects/<id>/conf.json` → `smart_ide.preview_urls.test`

Typical workflow:

1. Deploy to `test` (project workflow / `ia_dev`).
2. Open the `test` URL in Carbonyl:

```bash
./scripts/open-carbonyl-preview-test.sh --project <id>
```

3. Validate critical flows manually (login, navigation, chat proxy calls).

## Optional next step (automation)

If manual Carbonyl + system browser is not sufficient, introduce a dedicated service `browser-automation-api` **only** when at least one criterion is met (see [browser-automation-criteria.md](./browser-automation-criteria.md)):

- agent-driven reproducible E2E with timeouts + domain allowlist
- controlled scraping (pre-approved URLs)
- headless visual regression on infra without GUI
- rendering capture (PDF/images) for internal pages

Constraints for the future service:

- isolated process (`services/browser-automation-api/`)
- queue + concurrency limits + strict timeouts
- **network allowlist** (no arbitrary browsing)
- Bearer auth (service-to-service) + URL logging

## Related docs

- [carbonyl-terminal-browser.md](./carbonyl-terminal-browser.md)
- [browser-automation-criteria.md](./browser-automation-criteria.md)