Observe

Watch your agent work, debug what went wrong

Browser agents fail in ways that don’t show up in logs. Kernel gives you four ways to see what’s actually happening — live, after the fact, frame by frame, and line by line.

Live view

Every browser exposes a browser_live_view_url you can open in a browser tab or embed in an iframe. Use it to watch an agent run in real time, hand a session off to a human-in-the-loop, or surface the browser as part of your own UI.

Typescript/Javascript

import Kernel from '@onkernel/sdk';

const kernel = new Kernel();

const kernelBrowser = await kernel.browsers.create();
console.log(kernelBrowser.browser_live_view_url);

Add ?readOnly=true for a non-interactive view, or enable kiosk mode at creation for a fullscreen, chromeless experience. Full reference: Live View.

Replays

Replays are MP4 recordings you start and stop on demand. They’re the right tool for post-hoc debugging: a failed run produces a video you can scrub through, share, or attach to a bug report.

Typescript/Javascript

const replay = await kernel.browsers.replays.start(kernelBrowser.session_id);

// ...run the agent...

await kernel.browsers.replays.stop(replay.replay_id, {
  id: kernelBrowser.session_id,
});

Full reference: Replays.

Screenshots

Pull a frame at any moment with computer controls — useful for snapshotting state at decision points, attaching to traces, or feeding back into a vision model.

Typescript/Javascript

const screenshot = await kernel.browsers.computer.captureScreenshot(
  kernelBrowser.session_id,
);

For full-page captures, use Playwright execution instead.

Invocation logs

If you’re running an agent on Kernel’s app platform, every invocation produces a streaming log feed. Tail it live while the agent runs, or pull it after the fact for debugging.

Typescript/Javascript

const logs = await kernel.invocations.follow(invocationId);

for await (const event of logs) {
  console.log(event);
}

Full reference: Logs.

Picking the right tool

• Building the agent? Keep a live view tab open while you iterate.
• Debugging a failure? Capture a replay for the run, then watch the video.
• Instrumenting the agent itself? Drop screenshots and logs into your traces at the points that matter.
• Putting a human in the loop? Embed the live view in your own UI.