Dendrite provides powerful tools for building complex navigation flows for your AI agent web tools. The primary method for navigation is goto, which loads a page in the current or a new tab. Dendrite also has build in support for authenticating on websites. Additionally, Dendrite offers mechanisms to verify that the correct page has loaded and to wait for specific conditions before proceeding. The key concepts and methods related to navigation are:
  • goto for loading web pages
  • expected_page for page verification
  • wait_for for synchronizing with page conditions
  • ask for querying the state of the page
  • Handling authentication
  • Multiple tabs

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Navigating to a Page with goto

The goto method is used to navigate to a specified URL. It can open the URL in the active page or in a new tab. The goto method returns a Page object, representing the page.

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Basic Usage

from dendrite import Dendrite

# Initialize Dendrite instance
browser = Dendrite()

 # Navigate to a website
browser.goto("https://www.example.com")
In this example we navigate to “https://www.example.com” using the active page. If there is no active page, one is created.

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Using expected_page for Verification

The expected_page parameter allows you to describe the type of page that should be expected after navigation. Dendrite uses this description to verify that the correct page has loaded. 
browser.goto("https://www.example.com/dashboard", expected_page="User dashboard")
If the loaded page does not match the expected description, Dendrite can raise an exception or handle the discrepancy as needed. On web pages with long loading times, an exception will be thrown since the page doesn’t match the expected page query. In those cases, it is helpful to use a combination of wait_for and ask. 
browser.goto("https://www.example.com/dashboard")
browser.wait_for("Loading to complete")
correct_page = browser.ask("Is this a User Dashboard?", type_spec=bool)

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Opening a URL in a New Tab

You can open the URL in a new tab by setting new_page=True. This creates a new Page instance, allowing for interaction with multiple pages simultaneously.

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Authentication Session Management

Authenticating on behalf of a user is simple using Dendrite. Just use our browser extension, Dendrite Vault, to handle sessions and then provide the url(s) you want to authenticate on when initiating your Dendrite browser. 
browser = Dendrite(auth=["mail.google.com"])
try:
  browser.goto("https://mail.google.com/", expected_page="Gmail inbox")
except DendriteException as e:
  print("Authentication failed, page was not a Gmail inbox")
In the example above, we authenticate on “mail.google.com” and navigate to the Gmail inbox. If the page is not a Gmail inbox, we can conclude that the authentication has failed.

Authentication

Read more about authentication here

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Managing Multiple Tabs and Pages

When working with multiple tabs, it’s important to keep track of each Page instance to ensure that actions are performed on the correct page. The Dendrite instance maintains a list of all open pages through the pages property. 
# Get a list of all open pages
open_pages = browser.pages
The pages property returns a list of all active Page instances managed by the Dendrite browser.

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Performing Actions on Specific Pages

To perform actions on a specific page, use methods on the Page class rather than the Dendrite class. This ensures that the interaction occurs on the intended page. Example: Interacting with Multiple Pages 
from dendrite import Dendrite

browser = Dendrite()

# Open multiple URLs in new tabs
page1 = browser.goto("https://www.example.com", new_page=True)
page2 = browser.goto("https://www.anotherexample.com", new_page=True)

# Perform actions on page1
page1.click("Sign up button")
page1.fill("Email input", value="user@example.com")

# Perform actions on page2
page2.click("Contact us link")
page2.fill("Message textarea", value="Hello, I have a question.")
In this example, two different websites are opened in separate tabs and are managed using the methods on their respective Page instances.