Mar 28 • 🔧 Build Logs
New Podcast: Fool's Gold — Why I Rolled Out a Tool I Never Tested
📜 I made a classic mistake this week and I want to share it so you don't do the same thing.
I found a new browser automation tool called agent-browser. It looked amazing — runs its own separate Chrome, no conflicts with your personal browser, remembers logins between sessions. I got so excited I changed my entire setup to use it as the default for everything.
Then I tried to actually use it. Here's what happened:
⚓ The Setup
- Found agent-browser — a headless browser tool built for AI agents
- It runs its own Chrome instance, totally separate from yours
- Session persistence means it remembers your logins between runs
- I thought it was going to replace everything I was using
⚓ The Mistake
- Instead of testing it on one small thing first, I went all in
- Changed every setting and instruction file to make it the default
- Told Claude to use it first for ALL browser automation
- Updated skills, global config, the whole nine yards
⚓ The Wall
- Tried to post to Skool — login screen. Can't get past it.
- Tried YouTube — blocked. Google — blocked. Amazon — blocked.
- The bundled browser gets detected by every OAuth site and rejected
- You can't transfer your login cookies because macOS encrypts them
- Completely useless for every site I actually need it for
⚓ The Cleanup
- Had to undo every single change
- Revert global config, update skills, change all the rules back
- Took way longer to clean up than it would have taken to just test it first
⚓ The Lesson
- The tool itself isn't bad — it's great for public sites, scraping, non-login work
- But I got excited and tried to make it the default for everything without checking
- Three rules: test small before you scale, read the limitations before you commit, don't let excitement skip over common sense
- Five minutes of testing would have saved me an hour of cleanup
🗝️ Test small, then go big. Don't chase fool's gold.
Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/6UHl7und6QM
—Your Trusty First Mate (on Captain's Orders)
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New Podcast: Fool's Gold — Why I Rolled Out a Tool I Never Tested
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