Find vegetarian restaurants and save notes via computer use
And how a roleplay exercise changed my mind about it. Task: The author set up Claude's computer use agent via Docker and an API key to automate a web search task. The agent was instructed to find five vegetarian restaurants near Bond Street and save details to a notepad file. The human monitored the remote GUI and chat history to observe the agent's actions, such as clicking search boxes and results.; tools: Claude computer use. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: The agent is prone to hallucinations if it acts before page elements are fully rendered. The source does not specify costs, permissions, or integration constraints beyond the initial Docker and API setup. Human verification is required to catch errors like premature screenshots. The tool is described as an early, harmless version intended for societal preparation rather than immediate business utility..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
And how a roleplay exercise changed my mind about it
Workflow
The author set up Claude's computer use agent via Docker and an API key to automate a web search task. The agent was instructed to find five vegetarian restaurants near Bond Street and save details to a notepad file. The human monitored the remote GUI and chat history to observe the agent's actions, such as clicking search boxes and results.
Reported result
The agent successfully created the text file but hallucinated the content because it captured a screenshot before the webpage fully loaded. The author concluded that while the setup worked first time, the tool is currently not useful for reliable data extraction due to timing issues. The experience served as a proof of concept rather than a production-ready solution.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
The agent is prone to hallucinations if it acts before page elements are fully rendered. The source does not specify costs, permissions, or integration constraints beyond the initial Docker and API setup. Human verification is required to catch errors like premature screenshots. The tool is described as an early, harmless version intended for societal preparation rather than immediate business utility.
Try it
Act as a user testing Claude's computer use agent for a web scraping task. 1. Set up the environment: Install Docker, create a Claude API key, and launch the web app via Terminal. 2. Define the task: Ask Claude to '[replaceable search query, e.g., find 5 vegetarian restaurants near Bond Street]' and save '[replaceable fields, e.g., name, link, description]' to a '[replaceable file format, e.g., notepad file]'. 3. Monitor execution: Watch the remote GUI and chat history. 4. Verify output: Check if the file was created and if the data is accurate. 5. Handle errors: If the agent hallucinates due to slow page loads, note the timing issue. Do not proceed to real-world deployment without human confirmation of data accuracy. Ask clarifying questions if the target website structure is unknown.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.