Skyvern Official

Frequently asked questions

What does the Skyvern MCP server do?

> > > /> /> > > /> > > 🐉 Automate Browser-based workflows using LLMs and Computer Vision 🐉 > > > /> > > /> > > /> > > /> > > /> > > /> > > /> > > Skyvern automates browser-based workflows using LLMs and computer vision. It provides a Playwright-compatible SDK that adds AI functionality on top of playwright, as well as a no-code workflow builder to help both technical and non-technical users automate manual workflows on any website, replacing brittle or unreliable automation solutions. > /> > Traditional approaches to browser automations required writing custom scripts for websites, often relying on DOM parsing and XPath-based interactions which would break whenever the website layouts changed. Instead of only relying on code-defined XPath interactions, Skyvern relies on Vision LLMs to learn and interact with the websites. How it works Skyvern was inspired by the Task-Driven autonomous agent design popularized by BabyAGI and AutoGPT -- with one major bonus: we give Skyvern the ability to interact with websites using browser automation libraries like Playwright. Skyvern uses a swarm of agents to comprehend a website, and plan and execute its actions: > /> /> > This approach has a few advantages: Skyvern can operate on websites it's never seen before, as it's able to map visual elements to actions necessary to complete a workflow, without any customized code Skyvern is resistant to website layout changes, as there are no pre-determined XPaths or other selectors our system is looking for while trying to navigate Skyvern is able to take a single workflow and apply it to a large number of websites, as it's able to reason through the interactions necessary to complete the workflow A detailed technical report can be found here. Demo Quickstart Skyvern Cloud Skyvern Cloud is a managed cloud version of Skyvern that allows you to run Skyvern without worrying about the infrastructure. It allows you to run multiple Skyvern instances in parallel and comes bundled with anti-bot detection mechanisms, proxy network, and CAPTCHA solvers. If you'd like to try it out, navigate to app.skyvern.com and create an account. Run Locally (UI + Server) Choose your preferred setup method: > Database default : skyvern quickstart and skyvern run server default to a SQLite database at /.skyvern/data.db so the pip path works without Postgres or Docker. To use Postgres instead, pass --database-string for an existing database (or omit --no-postgres so quickstart starts its own Postgres container). Docker Compose always uses the bundled Postgres service. Option A: pip install (Recommended for Python-managed local setup) Dependencies needed: Python 3.11, 3.12, or 3.13 Additionally, for Windows: Rust VS Code with C++ dev tools and Windows SDK Install Skyvern Run Skyvern The pip quickstart uses SQLite by default. To use a local Postgres container instead, run skyvern quickstart (Postgres container is started unless you pass --no-postgres ), or connect to an existing database with --database-string=postgresql+psycopg://user:pass@host:5432/dbname . Option B: Docker Compose Use this option if you want everything containerized (Postgres, API, UI) and don't want to install Python/Node locally. Install Docker Desktop Clone the repository: Configure your LLM provider in .env (the quickstart --docker-compose command below will create it from .env.example if missing): Start everything: Open Troubleshooting (sqlite3.OperationalError) table organizations already exists — You hit a known bug in pip install skyvern==1.0.31 . Fix: If you are still on 1.0.31 and cannot upgrade, install via uv instead: pip install skyvern fails with ResolutionImpossible (litellm / fastmcp) — You hit a dependency-resolution conflict in 1.0.31. Either upgrade to 1.0.32+ or use uv: uv pip install skyvern . SDK Skyvern is a Playwright extension that adds AI-powered browser automation. It gives you the full power of Playwright with additional AI capabilities—use natural language prompts to interact with elements, extract data, and automate complex multi-step workflows. Installation: Python SDK / cloud API: pip install skyvern Local server + packaged UI: pip install "skyvern[all]" then run skyvern quickstart Local server + packaged UI with Postgres: pip install "skyvern[all]" then run skyvern quickstart --database-string=postgresql+psycopg://user:pass@host:5432/dbname Packaged UI for an existing API: pip install "skyvern[ui]" then set VITE API BASE URL (and VITE SKYVERN API KEY if your API requires a key) and run skyvern run ui TypeScript: npm install @skyvern/client AI-Powered Page Commands Skyvern adds four core AI commands directly on the page object: Command Description --------- ------------- page.act(prompt) Perform actions using natural language (e.g., "Click the login button") page.extract(prompt, schema) Extract structured data from the page with optional JSON schema page.validate(prompt) Validate page state, returns bool (e.g., "Check if user is logged in") page.prompt(prompt, schema) Send arbitrary prompts to the LLM with optional response schema Additionally, page.agent provides higher-level workflow commands: Command Description --------- ------------- page.agent.run task(prompt) Execute complex multi-step tasks page.agent.login(credential type, credential id) Authenticate with stored credentials (Skyvern, Bitwarden, 1Password) page.agent.download files(prompt) Navigate and download files page.agent.run workflow(workflow id) Execute pre-built workflows AI-Augmented Playwright Actions All standard Playwright actions support an optional prompt parameter for AI-powered element location: Action Playwright AI-Augmented -------- ------------ -------------- Click page.click(" btn") page.click(prompt="Click login button") Fill page.fill(" email", "a@b.com") page.fill(prompt="Email field", value="a@b.com") Select page.select option(" country", "US") page.select option(prompt="Country dropdown", value="US") Upload page.upload file(" file", "doc.pdf") page.upload file(prompt="Upload area", files="doc.pdf") Three interaction modes: Core AI Commands - Examples Quick Start Examples Run via UI: Navigate to to run tasks through the web interface. If the packaged UI is missing, skyvern run ui will offer to install the matching UI package. To run only the packaged UI against an existing Skyvern API, install skyvern[ui] and set the environment variables below before running skyvern run ui : VITE API BASE URL (e.g. — points the UI at your Skyvern API VITE SKYVERN API KEY — the API key if your API requires one VITE WSS BASE URL — WebSocket endpoint (inferred from VITE API BASE URL if unset) VITE ARTIFACT API BASE URL — base URL for artifact downloads VITE BROWSER STREAMING MODE — browser viewport streaming mode Python SDK: TypeScript SDK: Simple task execution: Advanced Usage Control your own browser (Chrome) Let Skyvern control your existing Chrome browser — with all your cookies, logins, and extensions. Step 1: Enable remote debugging in Chrome Open Chrome and navigate to chrome://inspect/ remote-debugging Click Enable to start the debugging server You should see: Server running at: 127.0.0.1:9222 > [!TIP] > The skyvern init browser command can do this automatically — it opens chrome://inspect/ remote-debugging , waits for you to enable it, and saves the config. Step 2: Connect Skyvern Option A — Python Code: Option B — Skyvern Service: Add two variables to your .env file: Restart Skyvern service skyvern run all and run the task through UI or code Connect Skyvern Cloud to your local browser Let Skyvern Cloud control a Chrome browser running on your machine — with all your existing cookies, logins, and extensions. Useful for automating sites where you're already logged in or behind a VPN. Then use the tunnel URL in your task: > [!WARNING] > Always use --api-key when exposing your browser via a tunnel. Without it, anyone with the URL has full control of your browser. See the security docs. See the full documentation for all options, manual tunnel setup, and troubleshooting. Get consistent output schema from your run You can do this by adding the data extraction schema parameter: Helpful commands to debug issues Performance & Evaluation Skyvern has SOTA performance on the WebBench benchmark with a 64.4% accuracy. The technical report + evaluation can be found here > /> > Performance on WRITE tasks (eg filling out forms, logging in, downloading files, etc) Skyvern is the best performing agent on WRITE tasks (eg filling out forms, logging in, downloading files, etc), which is primarily used for RPA (Robotic Process Automation) adjacent tasks. > /> > Skyvern Features Skyvern Tasks Tasks are the fundamental building block inside Skyvern. Each task is a single request to Skyvern, instructing it to navigate through a website and accomplish a specific goal. Tasks require you to specify a url , prompt , and can optionally include a data schema (if you want the output to conform to a specific schema) and error codes (if you want Skyvern to stop running in specific situations). > /> > Skyvern Workflows Workflows are a way to chain multiple tasks together to form a cohesive unit of work. For example, if you wanted to download all invoices newer than January 1st, you could create a workflow that first navigated to the invoices page, then filtered down to only show invoices newer than January 1st, extracted a list of all eligible invoices, and iterated through each invoice to download it. Another example is if you wanted to automate purchasing products from an e-commerce store, you could create a workflow that first navigated to the desired product, then added it to a cart. Second, it would navigate to the cart and validate the cart state. Finally, it would go through the checkout process to purchase the items. Supported workflow features include: Browser Task Browser Action Data Extraction Validation For Loops File parsing Sending emails Text Prompts HTTP Request Block Custom Code Block Uploading files to block storage (Coming soon) Conditionals > /> > Livestreaming Skyvern allows you to livestream the viewport of the browser to your local machine so that you can see exactly what Skyvern is doing on the web. This is useful for debugging and understanding how Skyvern is interacting with a website, and intervening when necessary Form Filling Skyvern is natively capable of filling out form inputs on websites. Passing in information via the navigation goal will allow Skyvern to comprehend the information and fill out the form accordingly. Data Extraction Skyvern is also capable of extracting data from a website. You can also specify a data extraction schema directly within the main prompt to tell Skyvern exactly what data you'd like to extract from the website, in jsonc format. Skyvern's output will be structured in accordance to the supplied schema. File Downloading Skyvern is also capable of downloading files from a website. All downloaded files are automatically uploaded to block storage (if configured), and you can access them via the UI. Authentication Skyvern supports a number of different authentication methods to make it easier to automate tasks behind a login. If you'd like to try it out, please reach out to us via email or discord. > /> > 🔐 2FA Support (TOTP) Skyvern supports a number of different 2FA methods to allow you to automate workflows that require 2FA. Examples include: QR-based 2FA (e.g. Google Authenticator, Authy) Email based 2FA SMS based 2FA 🔐 Learn more about 2FA support here. Password Manager Integrations Skyvern currently supports the following password manager integrations: [x] Bitwarden [x] Custom Credential Service (HTTP API) [ ] 1Password [ ] LastPass Model Context Protocol (MCP) Skyvern supports the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to allow you to use any LLM that supports MCP. See the MCP documentation here Zapier / Make.com / N8N

How do I install Skyvern?

Run the install command shown above, then paste the config for your client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Windsurf) into its MCP settings and restart the client.

Is Skyvern free to use?

The MCP server itself is free to install. The source is public on https://github.com/Skyvern-AI/skyvern. Any third-party service it calls may require its own API key and account.

Which clients support Skyvern?

Any MCP-compatible client can use it, including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and custom agents.