Exploring Automa: A No‑Code Chrome Extension for Web UI Automation

Installation

Automa can be installed from the Chrome Web Store at https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/automa/infppggnoaenmfagbfknfkancpbljcca or via alternative methods described in the GitHub repository https://github.com/Kholid060/automa.

Home Page Overview

The main interface contains three tabs:

Home

Workflow – lists each workflow (called a “case”) with its name, a run button, and the last‑edit timestamp.

History – shows execution records ordered from newest to oldest.

Workflow Management

Workflows can be created, exported, imported, and deleted through a simple CRUD interface.

Core Workspace

The left‑hand editor groups actions into four categories:

General actions : start, delay, repeat, export data.

Browser actions : open new tab, back, forward, close tab, screenshot.

Web page actions : click element, get text, scroll, follow link, get attribute, submit form.

Logic actions : conditional checks, existence verification.

Plugin Features

The search bar lets users locate specific workflows. A selector tool, accessed via a button that mimics the Chrome DevTools element picker, displays the CSS selector of the chosen element; the selector can be copied to create new actions.

Stability Considerations

Basic browser actions (opening tabs, navigation, screenshots) work reliably. More complex web‑element interactions, such as clicking dynamic video thumbnails on sites like Bilibili, may fail, indicating that the element‑interaction layer can be unstable in certain scenarios.