GitHub - steel-dev/surf.new: 🌊 An open-source alternative to OpenAI Operator

🌊 surf.new

A playground for testing web agents powered by Steel.dev. Experience how different AI agents can surf and interact with the web just like humans do.

🌟 Features

• Test multiple web agents in a controlled environment
• Real-time browser interaction visualization
• Support for various AI providers (Claude, GPT-4, etc.)
• Built with modern web technologies (Next.js 15, FastAPI, Steel SDK)
• Beautiful UI powered by Shadcn UI and Tailwind CSS

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18+ and npm
• Python 3.11+
• Steel API Key (sign up at steel.dev) or Local running instance

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/steel-dev/surf.new
cd surf.new

2. Install frontend dependencies:

3. Install backend dependencies:

python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: .\venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Set up environment variables:

cp .env.example .env.local

Edit .env.local and add your Steel API key and other required variables.

Running Locally

Run the development server:

Windows Users

If you're developing on Windows, you should use the Windows-specific command:

Technical Reason: Windows has two different asyncio event loop implementations:

• SelectorEventLoop (default): Uses select-based I/O and doesn't support subprocesses properly
• ProactorEventLoop: Uses I/O completion ports and fully supports subprocesses

Playwright requires subprocess support to launch browsers. When hot reloading is enabled, the default SelectorEventLoop is used, causing a NotImplementedError when Playwright tries to create a subprocess. Reference Issue: #32

This will start both the Next.js frontend (port 3001) and FastAPI backend (port 8000).

Visit http://localhost:3001 to start using surf.new!

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Here's how you can help:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

🔗 Links

• Steel.dev - Our main platform
• Documentation
• Discord Community
• Twitter

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

💪 Built With

• Next.js 15 - React Framework
• FastAPI - Python Backend
• Steel SDK - Browser Automation
• Shadcn UI - UI Components
• Tailwind CSS - Styling
• Vercel AI SDK - AI Chat Interface
• Langchain - Agent Framework

Made with ❤️ by the Steel team