Run a Steel browser job with Trigger.dev

Queue a Trigger.dev task that creates a Steel session, drives Playwright over CDP, saves artifacts, and releases the browser in cleanup.

examples/trigger-dev-browser-job
Contributors: Updated
Terminal

Scaffolds a starter project locally. Requires the Steel CLI.

This recipe runs browser automation as a queued background job. The request path only enqueues steel-browser-job; the task creates a Steel session, connects Playwright over CDP, extracts a page summary, saves artifacts, and releases the session in finally.

The core workflow lives in src/trigger/browser-job.ts:

export const browserJob = task({

  id: "steel-browser-job",

  maxDuration: 300,

  retry: { maxAttempts: 3 },

  queue: { concurrencyLimit: 2 },

  run: async (payload) => {

    session = await steel.sessions.create({ sessionTimeout: 600000 });

    browser = await chromium.connectOverCDP(

      `${session.websocketUrl}&apiKey=${steelApiKey}`

    );

    // browser work

  },

});

maxDuration caps runaway jobs at 5 minutes. retry gives transient page or network failures another attempt. queue.concurrencyLimit keeps only two browser jobs active at once, so a burst of requests does not create an unbounded number of sessions.

Run it

cd examples/trigger-dev-browser-job

cp .env.example .env

npm install

npm run dev

Set STEEL_API_KEY, TRIGGER_SECRET_KEY, and TRIGGER_PROJECT_REF in .env. Get a Steel key at app.steel.dev/settings/api-keys. Use your Trigger.dev project ref from the Trigger.dev dashboard.

In another terminal, enqueue one run:

npm run trigger

The trigger script reads TARGET_URL and LINK_LIMIT from .env, calls tasks.trigger("steel-browser-job", payload), and prints the run id. Watch the run in the Trigger.dev dashboard. Task output includes the Steel Live View URL, a hosted screenshot URL, local artifact paths, the extracted links, and duration in milliseconds.

Local artifacts are written to ARTIFACT_DIR:

artifacts/

|-- browser-job-2026-06-29T10-30-00-000Z.png

`-- browser-job-2026-06-29T10-30-00-000Z.md

Why the browser lives in the task

Browser sessions are slow compared to HTTP handlers. A page can take 20-60 seconds when the site hydrates, retries, or challenges automation. Putting that work in a Trigger.dev task gives you a run record, logs, retries, a timeout, and queue backpressure. The API caller gets a run id immediately instead of waiting for the browser.

The task still releases the Steel session on every path:

finally {

  if (browser) await browser.close();

  if (session) await steel.sessions.release(session.id);

}

That cleanup is the cost control. If extraction throws after navigation, the remote browser still shuts down instead of idling until the session timeout.

Make it yours

  • Swap the extraction. Replace the page.evaluate block with your site's selectors, form submission, or file download flow.
  • Store artifacts durably. Keep the hosted screenshot URL for public pages, or upload the page.screenshot() bytes to your own object storage when the artifact depends on logged-in session state.
  • Tune concurrency. Raise queue.concurrencyLimit for high-throughput crawls, or lower it when each job holds a logged-in profile.
  • Add idempotency. Pass an idempotency key from the caller when the same URL should not create duplicate browser runs.

Playwright recipe | Files recipe | Trigger.dev tasks

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Run itWhy the browser lives in the taskMake it yoursRelatedRelated recipes