manul-engine 0.0.9.18

Deterministic DSL-first browser automation platform powered by Playwright heuristics with optional local AI self-healing (Ollama)

ManulEngine

Deterministic, DSL-first web and desktop automation on top of Playwright, with explainable heuristics, a standalone Python API, and optional local AI fallback.

Status

Status: Alpha. Developed by a single person.

This project is actively being battle-tested. Bugs are expected, APIs may evolve, and there are no promises about stability or production readiness. The core claim is transparency: when a step works, you should understand why; when it fails, you should have enough signal to diagnose it.

Core Philosophy

ManulEngine is an interpreter for the .hunt DSL. A hunt file expresses intent in plain English, the runtime snapshots the DOM, ranks candidates with heuristics, and executes through Playwright.

Determinism first

The primary resolver is not an LLM. It is a deterministic scoring system backed by DOM traversal and weighted heuristics:

• DOM collection uses a native TreeWalker in injected JavaScript.
• Candidate ranking is handled by DOMScorer.
• Scores are normalized on a 0.0 to 1.0 confidence scale.
• Weighted channels include cache, semantics, text, attributes, and proximity.

That means the engine can explain more than "element not found". It can show whether a target lost because text affinity was weak, semantic alignment was poor, the candidate was hidden, or another channel outweighed it.

Transparency instead of AI magic

The recommended default is heuristics-only mode:

{
  "model": null,
  "browser": "chromium",
  "controls_cache_enabled": true,
  "semantic_cache_enabled": true
}

When a local Ollama model is enabled, it acts as a fallback for ambiguous cases rather than the primary execution path.

Dual-persona workflow

The authoring model is intentionally split across two layers:

• QA, analysts, and operators write plain-English .hunt steps.
• SDETs extend those flows with Python hooks, lifecycle setup, and custom controls when a UI or backend dependency should not be forced into the generic DSL path.

The intended boundary is straightforward:

• Keep business intent and readable flow in the DSL.
• Keep environment setup, backend interaction, and custom widget handling in Python.

Why ManulEngine

Most browser automation tools sold as AI automation are cloud wrappers around selectors and retries. ManulEngine is aiming at the opposite design.

Deterministic first, not AI-first

The runtime resolves DOM elements through a native JavaScript TreeWalker plus a weighted DOMScorer. That gives you a repeatable result from page state plus step text, not from prompt variance.

Explainable instead of opaque

When the engine chooses the wrong target, you should be able to inspect the actual scoring channels that drove the result. The point is not just success cases. The point is actionable failure analysis.

One artifact for two personas

QA, ops, and analysts can keep the flow readable in .hunt. SDETs can attach Python, lifecycle hooks, and custom controls without splitting the scenario into two separate systems.

Optional AI fallback, off by default

"model": null remains the recommended default. When a local Ollama model is enabled, it is a fallback for ambiguous cases, not the primary execution engine.

Four Automation Pillars

ManulEngine is not only a test runner. The same runtime and the same DSL can cover four adjacent use cases:

1. QA and E2E testing
2. RPA workflows
3. Synthetic monitoring
4. AI agent execution targets

QA and E2E testing

Write plain-English flows, verify outcomes, attach reports and screenshots when needed, and keep selectors out of the test source.

RPA workflows

Use the same DSL to log into portals, download files, fill forms, extract values, and hand work to Python when a backend or filesystem step is involved.

Synthetic monitoring

Pair .hunt files with @schedule: and manul daemon to run scheduled health checks with the same execution model as your test flows.

AI agent execution targets

If an external agent needs to drive the browser, .hunt is a safer constrained target than raw Playwright code because the runtime still owns validation, scoring, retries, and reporting.

Key Features

Explainability layers

The runtime and companion VS Code extension expose multiple explainability layers instead of forcing you to inspect a terminal dump.

CLI: --explain

manul --explain tests/saucedemo.hunt
manul --explain --headless tests/ --html-report

That mode prints candidate rankings and per-channel scoring breakdowns for each resolved step.

Representative CLI explain output:

┌─ EXPLAIN: Target = "Login"
│  Step: Click the 'Login' button
│
│  #1 <button> "Login"
│     total:      0.593
│     text:       0.281
│     attributes: 0.050
│     semantics:  0.225
│     proximity:  0.037
│     cache:      0.000
│
└─ Decision: selected "Login" with score 0.593

VS Code: title bar action

During a debug pause, the extension exposes Explain Current Step in the editor title bar so you can request explanation data for the paused step without leaving the editor.

VS Code: hover tooltips in debug mode

Run a hunt in Debug mode through Test Explorer, then hover over any resolved step line in the .hunt file. The extension shows the stored per-channel breakdown directly on that line.

Desktop and Electron automation via executable_path

ManulEngine is not limited to browser tabs. Because it runs on Playwright, it can also drive Electron-based desktop applications.

Set executable_path in the runtime config and use OPEN APP instead of NAVIGATE:

{
  "model": null,
  "browser": "chromium",
  "executable_path": "/path/to/YourElectronApp"
}

@context: Desktop smoke test
@title: Desktop Smoke

STEP 1: Attach to the window
    OPEN APP
    VERIFY that 'Welcome' is present

STEP 2: Exercise the main screen
    Click the 'Settings' button
    VERIFY that 'Preferences' is present

DONE.

Smart recorder for native controls

The recorder is meant to capture intent, not just raw pointer activity. A concrete example is native <select> handling: the injected recorder observes semantic change events and emits DSL such as Select 'Option' from 'Dropdown' instead of recording a brittle chain of low-level clicks on <option> elements.

Python hooks and custom controls

When the generic resolver should not be forced to understand a bespoke widget, ManulEngine provides an explicit SDET escape hatch:

• [SETUP] / [TEARDOWN] hooks for environment and data setup.
• CALL PYTHON for backend lookups or computed values.
• @before_all / @after_all lifecycle hooks for suite-wide orchestration.
• @custom_control handlers for complex UI elements.

That balance is intentional: keep the common path readable, and keep the edge cases programmable.

Public Python API (ManulSession)

For users who prefer writing automation in pure Python, the runtime exports ManulSession: an async context manager that owns the Playwright lifecycle and exposes clean methods for navigation, clicks, fills, verifications, and extraction.

from manul_engine import ManulSession

async with ManulSession(headless=True) as session:
    await session.navigate("https://example.com/login")
    await session.fill("Username field", "admin")
    await session.fill("Password field", "secret")
    await session.click("Log in button")
    await session.verify("Welcome")
    price = await session.extract("Product Price")

ManulSession can also execute raw DSL snippets against the already-open browser via run_steps():

async with ManulSession() as session:
    await session.navigate("https://example.com")
    result = await session.run_steps("""
        STEP 1: Search
            Fill 'Search' with 'ManulEngine'
            PRESS Enter
            VERIFY that 'Results' is present
    """)
    assert result.status == "pass"

State, variables, and scope

Variable handling is strict rather than ad hoc. The runtime supports @var:, @script:, EXTRACT, SET, and CALL PYTHON ... into {var} with deterministic placeholder substitution in downstream steps.

Useful patterns:

• @var: for static test data at the top of the file.
• @script: for file-local aliases such as @script: {auth} = scripts.auth_helpers, then CALL PYTHON {auth}.issue_token into {token}; or callable aliases such as @script: {issue_token} = scripts.auth_helpers.issue_token, then CALL PYTHON {issue_token} into {token}.
• EXTRACT ... into {var} for values pulled from the UI.
• SET {var} = value for mid-run assignment.
• CALL PYTHON module.func into {var} for backend-generated runtime values such as OTPs or tokens.

Scope precedence is explicit:

Priority	Scope	Source
1	Row vars	@data: iteration values
2	Step vars	EXTRACT, SET, CALL PYTHON ... into {var}
3	Mission vars	@var: declarations
4	Global vars	lifecycle hooks and process-level state

Tags and data-driven runs

The runtime also supports selective execution and data-driven loops without changing the DSL model.

@tags: smoke, auth
@data: users.csv

manul tests/ --tags smoke

Lifecycle orchestration and hooks

There are two levels of Python orchestration:

• Per-file [SETUP] / [TEARDOWN] and inline CALL PYTHON for file-local setup or backend calls.
• Suite-level manul_hooks.py with @before_all, @after_all, @before_group, and @after_group for shared state across multiple hunts.

Benchmarks and test coverage

The repo ships with both synthetic tests and adversarial fixtures. The point is not to claim maturity. The point is to show that the scoring model, parser, hooks, recorder, scheduler, and reporter are exercised against concrete failure modes.

• python manul.py test runs the synthetic and unit suite.
• benchmarks/run_benchmarks.py exercises dynamic IDs, overlapping traps, nested tables, and custom dropdown fixtures.
• tests/*.hunt holds integration-style hunts for real browser flows.

Getting Started

Install

pip install manul-engine==0.0.9.18
playwright install

If you install standalone Python dependencies manually instead of using the packaged extras, the current minimums in this release line are playwright==1.58.0 and ollama==0.6.1.

Optional local AI fallback:

pip install "manul-engine[ai]==0.0.9.18"
ollama pull qwen2.5:0.5b
ollama serve

VS Code Extension

ManulEngine has a companion VS Code extension. Normal installation should use the published Marketplace build:

• https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=manul-engine.manul-engine

code --install-extension manul-engine.manul-engine

Configuration

Create manul_engine_configuration.json in the workspace root. All keys are optional, but this file is the main runtime control plane:

{
  "model": null,
  "browser": "chromium",
  "browser_args": [],
  "headless": false,
  "ai_always": false,
  "ai_policy": "prior",
  "ai_threshold": null,
  "timeout": 5000,
  "nav_timeout": 30000,
  "controls_cache_enabled": true,
  "controls_cache_dir": "cache",
  "semantic_cache_enabled": true,
    "custom_controls_dirs": ["controls"],
  "log_name_maxlen": 0,
  "log_thought_maxlen": 0,
  "tests_home": "tests",
  "auto_annotate": false,
  "executable_path": null,
  "channel": null,
  "workers": 1,
  "retries": 0,
  "screenshot": "on-fail",
  "html_report": false
}

Notes:

• model: null keeps the runtime fully heuristics-only.
• browser_args passes extra launch flags to the browser.
• ai_always, ai_policy, and ai_threshold only matter when a model is enabled.
• controls_cache_dir, tests_home, and auto_annotate control runtime filesystem behavior.
• custom_controls_dirs lists directories where @custom_control Python modules are scanned. Default: ["controls"].
• channel targets an installed browser such as Chrome or Edge.
• executable_path targets a custom executable such as an Electron app.

Environment variables always win over JSON config:

export MANUL_HEADLESS=true
export MANUL_BROWSER=firefox
export MANUL_MODEL=qwen2.5:0.5b
export MANUL_WORKERS=4
export MANUL_EXPLAIN=true

Configuration reference:

Key	Default	Description
model	null	Ollama model name. null keeps the runtime heuristics-only.
headless	false	Hide the browser window.
browser	"chromium"	Browser engine: chromium, firefox, or webkit.
browser_args	[]	Extra launch flags for the browser.
ai_threshold	auto	Score threshold before optional LLM fallback.
ai_always	false	Always ask the LLM picker. Only makes sense when model is set.
ai_policy	"prior"	Treat heuristic score as a prior hint or as a strict constraint.
controls_cache_enabled	true	Enable the persistent per-site controls cache.
controls_cache_dir	"cache"	Cache directory relative to CWD or absolute path.
semantic_cache_enabled	true	Enable in-session semantic cache reuse.
custom_controls_dirs	["controls"]	List of directories scanned for @custom_control Python modules. Resolved relative to CWD.
timeout	5000	Default action timeout in ms.
nav_timeout	30000	Navigation timeout in ms.
log_name_maxlen	0	Truncate element names in logs. 0 means no limit.
log_thought_maxlen	0	Truncate LLM thought strings in logs. 0 means no limit.
workers	1	Max hunt files to run in parallel.
tests_home	"tests"	Default output directory for new hunts and scan output.
auto_annotate	false	Insert # 📍 Auto-Nav: comments after URL changes during a run.
channel	null	Installed browser channel such as chrome or msedge.
executable_path	null	Absolute path to a custom executable such as Electron.
retries	0	Retry failed hunt files this many times.
screenshot	"on-fail"	Screenshot mode: none, on-fail, or always.
html_report	false	Generate or refresh reports/manul_report.html after the run. Recent CLI invocations within the same report session are merged instead of silently overwriting the last file.
explain_mode	false	Enable DOMScorer explain output. Shows per-channel scoring breakdowns for each resolved element.

HTML report notes:

• The runtime stores recent report-session state in reports/manul_report_state.json.
• This is what lets separate CLI or Test Explorer invocations accumulate into one reports/manul_report.html during a recent session window.
• The HTML header now shows Run Session and Merged invocations so it is obvious when the file contains more than one invocation.

First hunt file

@context: Smoke test for a login flow
@title: Login Smoke
@var: {email} = [e-mail]
@var: {password} = secret123

STEP 1: Open the app
    NAVIGATE to https://example.com/login
    VERIFY that 'Sign In' is present

STEP 2: Authenticate
    Fill 'Email' field with '{email}'
    Fill 'Password' field with '{password}'
    Wait for 'Sign In' to be visible
    Click the 'Sign In' button
    VERIFY that 'Dashboard' is present

DONE.

Run it

manul tests/login.hunt

Useful commands:

python manul.py test
manul tests/
manul --headless tests/saucedemo.hunt
manul --html-report --screenshot on-fail tests/
manul --explain tests/saucedemo.hunt

When --html-report is enabled, repeated runs from VS Code Test Explorer no longer leave only the final hunt in the HTML output. The runtime merges recent invocations into the same report session and labels the report header accordingly.

Runtime Reference

Useful capabilities that get lost when the README is trimmed too aggressively:

• OPEN APP plus executable_path lets the same DSL drive Electron apps.
• @schedule: plus manul daemon turns a hunt into a built-in monitor or RPA task.
• @var:, EXTRACT, SET, and CALL PYTHON ... into {var} give you deterministic variable flow without hardcoding runtime values.
• [SETUP], [TEARDOWN], inline CALL PYTHON, and manul_hooks.py cover environment setup, backend calls, and suite-wide orchestration.
• @custom_control is the explicit escape hatch when a widget should be handled with raw Playwright instead of generic heuristics.
• SCAN PAGE and manul record accelerate authoring without replacing the readable DSL with low-level recordings.
• Wait for "Text" to be visible, Wait for 'Spinner' to disappear, and Wait for "Submit" to be hidden give the DSL a deterministic explicit-wait path backed by Playwright locator.wait_for() instead of hardcoded sleeps.

Contextual UI navigation

When identical controls exist multiple times on the page, the DSL can now add a contextual qualifier instead of dropping into brittle selectors.

Click the 'Delete' button NEAR 'John Doe'
Click the 'Login' button ON HEADER
Click the 'Privacy Policy' link ON FOOTER
Click the 'Delete' button INSIDE 'Actions' row with 'John Doe'

• NEAR 'Anchor' biases ranking by Euclidean pixel distance to the resolved anchor element.
• ON HEADER prefers elements in the top 15% of the viewport or inside header / nav ancestry.
• ON FOOTER prefers elements in the bottom 15% of the viewport or inside footer ancestry.
• INSIDE 'Container' row with 'Text' narrows the search to the resolved row or container subtree before normal action scoring continues.

Explicit waits

Use explicit waits when the DOM is still settling after navigation or after an action triggers async UI updates.

Wait for "Welcome, User" to be visible
Wait for 'Loading...' to disappear
Wait for "Submit" to be hidden

disappear maps to Playwright's hidden state, so the runtime treats hidden and disappear as the same wait target internally.

Strict assertions

Use strict assertions when you need exact element text, exact placeholder attributes, or exact current field values instead of loose presence checks.

Verify "save" button has text "Save me"
Verify "Error message" element has text "Invalid credentials"
Verify 'Login' field has placeholder "Login/Email"
Verify "Search" input has placeholder "Type to search..."
Verify "Email" field has value "[e-mail]"
Verify "Notes" element has value "treasure map"

• Verify "<element_name>" <type> has text "<expected_text>" resolves the element through the normal DOM heuristics, reads locator.inner_text().strip(), and performs strict == comparison.
• Verify "<element_name>" <type> has placeholder "<expected_placeholder>" resolves the element, reads the placeholder attribute, and performs strict == comparison.
• Verify "<element_name>" <type> has value "<expected_value>" resolves the element, reads its current value with input_value() and a value-attribute fallback, normalizes missing values to "", and performs strict == comparison.
• On mismatch, the runtime raises a readable assertion that includes the resolved element locator plus Expected and Actual values.

Static variables and hooks

@var: {email} = [e-mail]
@var: {password} = secret123
@script: {db} = scripts.db_helpers
@script: {seed_admin_user} = scripts.db_helpers.seed_admin_user

[SETUP]
    PRINT "Preparing demo user for {email}"
    CALL PYTHON {seed_admin_user} with args: "{email}" "{password}"
    CALL PYTHON {db}.issue_login_token with args: "{email}" into {login_token}
[END SETUP]

STEP 1: Login
    NAVIGATE to https://example.com/login
    Fill 'Email' field with '{email}'
    Fill 'Password' field with '{password}'
    Click the 'Sign In' button
    VERIFY that 'Dashboard' is present

STEP 2: OTP verification
    Click the 'Send OTP' button
    CALL PYTHON api_helpers.fetch_otp with args: "{email}" "{login_token}" into {otp}
    Fill 'OTP' field with '{otp}'
    Click the 'Verify' button
    VERIFY that 'Welcome' is present

[TEARDOWN]
    PRINT "Cleaning up seeded user for {email}"
    CALL PYTHON {db}.clean_database with args: "{email}"
[END TEARDOWN]

• Hook syntax is bracket-only: [SETUP] / [END SETUP] and [TEARDOWN] / [END TEARDOWN].
• PRINT "..." is valid inside hook blocks and resolves {variables} before printing.
• CALL PYTHON ... with args: ... is optional sugar for positional arguments; plain CALL PYTHON mod.func "arg" still works.
• @script: lets you declare a file-local alias once and reuse either CALL PYTHON {alias}.func or CALL PYTHON {callable_alias} in hooks and mission steps.
• @script: must use dotted Python import paths only: scripts.db_helpers or scripts.db_helpers.issue_login_token. Slash paths like scripts/db_helpers.py are rejected.
• File-based helpers resolve from the .hunt directory first, then the project root, before falling back to normal imports via sys.path.
• If setup fails, the mission is marked as broken and the browser steps are skipped. Teardown still runs after the mission whenever setup succeeded.

Supported CALL PYTHON forms:

CALL PYTHON package.module.function
CALL PYTHON package.module.function with args: "arg1" "arg2"
CALL PYTHON package.module.function "arg1" "arg2" into {result}
CALL PYTHON package.module.function into {result}
CALL PYTHON {module_alias}.function
CALL PYTHON {module_alias}.function into {result}
CALL PYTHON {callable_alias}
CALL PYTHON {callable_alias} with args: "arg1" "arg2"
CALL PYTHON {callable_alias} into {result}

Alias examples:

@script: {db} = scripts.db_helpers
@script: {issue_login_token} = scripts.db_helpers.issue_login_token

Tags, scheduler, and execution controls

@tags: smoke, regression
@schedule: every 5 minutes

manul tests/ --tags smoke
manul daemon tests/ --headless

Global lifecycle hooks

from manul_engine import before_all, after_all, GlobalContext

@before_all
def setup(ctx: GlobalContext) -> None:
    ctx.variables["BASE_URL"] = "https://staging.example.com"

@after_all
def teardown(ctx: GlobalContext) -> None:
    cleanup_test_data()

Testing and Benchmarks

The project is alpha, but it is not undocumented or untested.

• python manul.py test runs the synthetic and unit suite
• tests/*.hunt holds integration-style hunts
• benchmarks/run_benchmarks.py exercises adversarial fixtures such as dynamic IDs, overlays, nested tables, and custom dropdowns

Representative coverage areas include:

• logical STEP grouping and hierarchical execution
• ManulSession API behavior
• scheduler parsing
• lifecycle hooks
• scoped variables
• HTML reporting
• iframe routing
• visibility filtering and TreeWalker behavior
• custom controls and lazy control loading

What's New in v0.0.9.18

• Code optimization: pre-compiled a repeated regex pattern (_RE_NUMBERED_PREFIX) in core.py at module level, following the same convention already established in helpers.py. Eliminates redundant re.compile calls inside the step execution loop.
• New test suite — test_48_prompts_config: dedicated unit tests for prompts.py covering threshold auto-derivation, get_threshold priority chain, lookup_page_name resolution (exact match, regex, Domain fallback, auto-population), _KEY_MAP completeness, env_bool helper, and module-level config defaults. 83 assertions, no browser required.
• Test suite expanded to 2731 assertions across 49 test files (up from 2648 / 48 suites in v0.0.9.17).
• explain_mode config key documented: previously available in code and via MANUL_EXPLAIN env var, now listed in the configuration reference table.
• Documentation fully synchronized: README.md, README_DEV.md, .github/copilot-instructions.md, and .cursorrules updated to reflect the current codebase state, test counts, and version.

License

Version: 0.0.9.18

Apache-2.0.