[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":358},["ShallowReactive",2],{"project-46963887":3},{"id":4,"name":5,"line":6,"line_source":7,"title":8,"url":9,"domain":10,"maker":11,"posted_at":12,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rank_in_year":16,"shown_in_year":17,"top":18,"tier":19,"category":20,"subcategory":21,"format":22,"keywords":23,"reception":29,"sentiment":30,"stance_mix":31,"scored_comments":18,"aspects":36,"strip":42,"post_text":44,"what":45,"said":82,"maker_in_thread":175,"shape":188,"grid":193,"attempts":319,"same_week":320,"maker_shows":283,"maker_hidden":350,"reader_version":351,"card":352},"46963887","Showboat and Rodney","Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built","title","Show HN: Showboat and Rodney, so agents can demo what they've built","https:\u002F\u002Fsimonwillison.net\u002F2026\u002FFeb\u002F10\u002Fshowboat-and-rodney\u002F","simonwillison.net","simonw",1770745966,2026,91,58,752,4366,18,"notable","dev_tools","agent demo and browser automation cli","cli",[24,25,26,27,28],"ai agents","browser automation","markdown demos","playwright alternative","cli tools","curious",0.033,{"positive":32,"neutral":33,"mixed":34,"critical":35},5,9,0,4,{"docs":37,"idea":39,"design":41},{"positive":38,"critical":38},1,{"positive":35,"critical":40},2,{"positive":34,"critical":38},[32,32,38,34,34,32,34,34,43,34,43,32,34,34,43,32,43,34,43,38,43,34,43,34,34,43,34,34,34,34,34,34,38,34,38,34,34,34,34,43],3,null,{"problem":46,"audience":44,"pricing":44,"motivation":56,"time_to_build":44,"stack":61,"openness":80,"stage":81,"team_size":80},{"value":47,"source":48,"evidence":49},"Lets agents demo what they built as reviewable markdown docs with command output and screenshots","maker",[50,53],{"id":51,"by":11,"text":52},"46965688","Maybe not a lot. Showboat documents look neater if there are single one-line commands that do something useful. Dumping a full Playwright script into a cell is less readable.…",{"id":54,"by":11,"text":55},"46965994","Because I don't want it to write to the markdown file directly. I want it to tell me the command it runs and I then run that command and write both the command and the output to…",{"value":57,"source":48,"evidence":58},"Give agents a way to demonstrate features for human review, instead of just writing docs",[59,60],{"id":54,"by":11,"text":55},{"id":51,"by":11,"text":52},[62,68,73],{"value":63,"source":48,"evidence":64},"Go",[65],{"id":66,"by":11,"text":67},"46964710","I'm dabbling with Go at the moment for small tools, mainly as an excuse to learn a new language but also because having a single standalone binary is convenient for shuttling…",{"value":69,"source":48,"evidence":70},"Python (uv\u002Fpip packaging)",[71,72],{"id":66,"by":11,"text":67},{"id":51,"by":11,"text":52},{"value":74,"source":75,"evidence":76},"Rust (agent-browser, a comparable tool)","commenter",[77],{"id":78,"by":11,"text":79},"46966945","Hah! I hadn't seen that one before. Yeah, the CLI design is very similar. Main difference is Rodney can be installed as a single Go binary or via uv\u002Fpip, agent-browser is Rust…","unknown","launched",{"praise":83,"objections":105,"requests":127,"questions":139,"alternatives":154},[84,95],{"value":85,"source":75,"evidence":86},"Useful idea for reviewing agent output as a test-like demo",[87,91],{"id":88,"by":89,"text":90},"46965210","Hansenq","I was a bit confused as to how everything works until I read it in detail. Really cool tools, but I think one thing that would help in the introduction is: saying explicitly that…",{"id":92,"by":93,"text":94},"46964632","eliben","Very interesting! I encountered the problems these tools are trying to tackle just recently while trying to guide an agent into creating an in-browser tool for me. Closing the…",{"value":96,"source":75,"evidence":97},"Go\u002Fuv packaging makes the CLIs easy to distribute",[98,102],{"id":99,"by":100,"text":101},"46965058","markusw","If you're coming from the Python world, definitely. I find `go install github.com\u002Fsimonw\u002Frodney@latest` equally easy. :D Although you need the Go tooling installed, of course.…",{"id":103,"by":93,"text":104},"46965069","Right, standalone binaries for CLI tools is great. And if one has Go installed, they can just `go run ...` any tool from its GitHub path, all installation\u002Fbuild\u002Fcaching happens…",[106,116],{"value":107,"source":75,"evidence":108},"Markdown is a weak format for documentation compared with reStructuredText or AsciiDoc",[109,113],{"id":110,"by":111,"text":112},"46965052","toastal","If agents can generate text so easily, why would they be limited to Markdown instead of reStructuredText, AsciiDoc, or LaTeX which have rich features that help users understand…",{"id":114,"by":111,"text":115},"46971390","Documentation isn’t as simple document. There are tons of rich elements missing from the spec specifically for documentation… which is why so many resort to adopting one of the…",{"value":117,"source":75,"evidence":118},"Rodney duplicates existing tools like Playwright and agent-browser",[119,123],{"id":120,"by":121,"text":122},"46965631","johnfn","Out of curiosity, what is the advantage of using Rodney when Playwright has the same set of features and AI understands how to write a Playwright script very well?",{"id":124,"by":125,"text":126},"46966915","simlevesque","rodney seems to be pretty much the same as agent-browser: https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002Fvercel-labs\u002Fagent-browser",[128],{"value":129,"source":75,"evidence":130},"Make the blog theme responsive and wider on large screens",[131,135],{"id":132,"by":133,"text":134},"46967273","samuelson","I love your content, but I wish you'd make your blog theme responsive for wider screens\u002Fnon-mobile. I prefer to read content like this on a large screen. Showboat seems like it…",{"id":136,"by":137,"text":138},"46967769","TheKnack","I second the request to make the site responsive. When I load the page the CSS constrains the main content to 560px and the whole page is constrained to 940px. Here's how it…",[140,144],{"value":141,"source":75,"evidence":142},"What advantage does Rodney have over Playwright",[143],{"id":120,"by":121,"text":122},{"value":145,"source":75,"evidence":146},"Could Jupyter or marimo notebooks do the same job",[147,151],{"id":148,"by":149,"text":150},"46966033","mentalgear","A bit like jupyter notebooks, isn't it?",{"id":152,"by":100,"text":153},"46972410","I think you had a post about marimo notebooks at some point? I think they would be better suited for that. Their representation is just Python, they can run as scripts, and they…",[155,163,167,171],{"value":156,"source":75,"evidence":157},"Playwright and playwright-cli",[158,159],{"id":120,"by":121,"text":122},{"id":160,"by":161,"text":162},"46964775","tardismechanic","See also (the confusingly named) playwright-cli https:\u002F\u002Fgithub.com\u002Fmicrosoft\u002Fplaywright-cli Different from the cli used for running tests etc that comes bundled with PlayWright…",{"value":164,"source":75,"evidence":165},"agent-browser",[166],{"id":124,"by":125,"text":126},{"value":168,"source":75,"evidence":169},"Jupyter notebooks",[170],{"id":148,"by":149,"text":150},{"value":172,"source":75,"evidence":173},"marimo notebooks",[174],{"id":152,"by":100,"text":153},{"comments":176,"answered":177,"key":178},15,6,[179,182,185],{"id":180,"text":181},"46967485","First time someone's asked for the site to be wider! I have it setup so on a wide screen the text is still a readable width, do you think it needs to bump up that max width a bit…",{"id":183,"text":184},"46968112","Can you take a screenshot of some other site that is wider but has a comfortable reading width for you?",{"id":186,"text":187},"46968128","That timeout trick is very neat! I'm OK with longer running tests because I always have them run against a real database (often SQLite, sometimes PostgreSQL) and real files…",{"commenters":189,"max_depth":190,"maker_replies":176,"first_comment_mins":191,"lifespan_hours":192},24,7,43,123,[194,196,198,200,202,206,207,210,214,216,219,223,225,226,228,229,230,231,232,233,235,237,238,240,243,246,251,254,256,258,261,263,265,268,271,275,277,279,281,285,289,291,292,294,297,298,301,304,307,309,310,312,314,316],[88,34,32,195,89,34],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fdocs",[132,38,32,197,133,34],"project\u002Fpositive\u002Fidea",[180,38,34,199,11,38],"maker\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[136,38,38,201,137,34],"maker\u002Fcritical\u002Fdesign",[203,38,34,204,205,34],"46968043","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign","dwb",[183,38,34,204,11,38],[208,40,32,197,209,34],"46975064","skeledrew",[211,43,34,212,213,34],"46967610","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone","cadamsdotcom",[186,43,34,215,11,38],"commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[217,43,34,218,213,34],"46969303","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fperformance",[220,35,34,221,222,34],"46965143","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea","giancarlostoro",[120,32,43,224,121,34],"project\u002Fneutral\u002Fidea",[51,32,34,224,11,38],[227,32,43,224,121,34],"46971036",[92,177,32,197,93,34],[66,177,34,212,11,38],[99,177,34,212,100,34],[103,177,34,212,93,34],[148,190,43,224,149,34],[234,190,34,224,11,38],"46966236",[236,190,32,197,149,34],"46966401",[152,190,43,224,100,34],[239,190,34,197,11,38],"46972469",[241,190,34,212,242,34],"47027240","ichverstehe",[244,190,43,245,133,34],"46967350","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdesign",[247,248,38,249,250,34],"46964709",8,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fidea","saberience",[252,248,34,253,11,38],"46964748","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[255,248,43,224,100,34],"46965123",[257,248,34,212,11,38],"46965294",[259,248,43,260,100,34],"46965682","project\u002Fneutral\u002Fnone",[262,248,34,260,11,38],"46965964",[264,248,34,212,100,34],"46973433",[266,33,34,212,267,34],"46966728","Sharlin",[269,33,34,212,270,34],"46967261","eclipxe",[272,273,43,224,274,34],"46966497",10,"sNyZZzzz",[160,276,34,212,161,34],11,[278,276,34,212,11,38],"46964783",[280,276,34,212,100,34],"46965092",[282,283,34,212,284,34],"46965262",12,"measurablefunc",[286,287,34,212,288,34],"46965224",13,"nzoschke",[124,290,34,221,125,34],14,[78,290,34,212,11,38],[293,290,34,212,125,34],"46967778",[295,176,38,249,296,34],"46965969","water-drummer",[54,176,34,224,11,38],[110,299,38,300,111,34],16,"project\u002Fcritical\u002Fdocs",[302,299,34,303,222,34],"46965163","other\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[305,299,34,306,111,34],"46965279","commenter\u002Fneutral\u002Fdocs",[308,299,34,306,222,34],"46965320",[114,299,34,306,111,34],[311,299,34,253,11,38],"46965261",[313,299,34,306,111,34],"46971372",[315,299,34,253,11,38],"46972282",[317,299,43,253,318,34],"46965673","bee_rider",[],[321,326,331,336,341,346],{"id":322,"name":323,"points":324,"category":325},"46954696","Wall Street Raider",721,"games",{"id":327,"name":328,"points":329,"category":330},"46943568","AllTheViews",412,"learning_science",{"id":332,"name":333,"points":334,"category":335},"46916609","rememory",402,"security_privacy",{"id":337,"name":338,"points":339,"category":340},"46917033","Vecti",386,"creative",{"id":342,"name":343,"points":344,"category":345},"46930391","LocalGPT",331,"ai",{"id":347,"name":348,"points":349,"category":20},"46918429","Look Ma, No Linux",327,false,"v2",{"id":353,"name":5,"line":6,"ai":350,"cat":20,"year":13,"points":14,"comments":15,"rec":29,"s":354,"top":18,"kw":355,"maker":11,"domain":10,"tier":19,"attempts":34,"strip":356,"url":9,"mix":357,"praise":85,"objection":107,"sub":21},46963887,0.03,[24,25,26,27,28],"5510050030350035303130300300000010100003",[32,33,34,35],1794036692901]