# Recordings

A recording captures a job you do yourself in one tab and saves it as named steps, so the agent can
repeat it later against the live page.

[Site maps](site-maps.md) describe how a site is laid out; recordings describe a task you perform
on it.

---

## Recording

Press **Record** in the side panel's **Recordings** tab, do the job yourself (click through the
pages, fill the fields, submit the form), then press stop. Or say it:

```
record my browsing session
stop recording
```

Both are [instant commands](instant-commands.md). A recording only ever starts from your own click
or your own words.

Browsentic splits what you did into ordered steps, names them after what you accomplished, and keeps
them in a renameable list.

A recording **follows only the tab it started in**. Navigations inside that tab become steps, other
tabs are ignored, and closing the tab stops and saves it. It runs for at most **15 minutes**, warns
you at 13, and stops itself at the limit.

---

## What you type is not saved by default

Every field becomes a placeholder, such as `{{email}}` or `{{invoice_number}}`, and you are asked
for the value when the recording is replayed.

Tick **Save what I type** to keep the literal values instead. Either way, **passwords, hidden
fields, one-time codes and anything shaped like a card number are always dropped.**

---

## Replaying

```
do it like last time
```

Replay is not blind playback. The agent treats the steps as a plan:

- it re-checks each target against the live page before acting;
- it prefers the **visible text** it recorded over the CSS selector, because selectors are what a
  redesign breaks first;
- anything consequential still waits for [approval](../approvals.md), even though you did it
  yourself while recording;
- if a step no longer lands, the run **stops and tells you which one** instead of improvising a
  different route to the same result.

If two recordings could match what you asked for, you are asked which one. The agent never guesses
between them, because replaying the wrong workflow spends real clicks on your real account.

---

## Where they live

In the extension's own storage, not on disk. That is why `browsentic skills` does not list them,
and why `page_listRecordings` and `page_readRecording` exist as tools. Removing the extension
removes them.

A recording leaves the browser only for the local, one-shot call that turns the raw trace into
named steps.

---

## See also

- [Site maps](site-maps.md): the other kind of memory
- [Skills](skills.md): `browse-navigation` is the skill that replays these
- [internals/subsystems.md](../../internals/subsystems.md): capture, scrubbing and step synthesis