Live VNC for web agents – debugging native captcha on Cloud Run
Hi HN, Bhavani here (rtrvr.ai). We build DOM-native web agents (no screenshot-based vision, no CDP/Playwright debugger-port control). We handle captchas natively including Google reCAPTCHA image challenges by traversing cross-origin iframes and shadow DOM. The latency is high on this one currently. The problem: when debugging image selection captchas ("select all images with traffic lights"), logs don't tell you why the agent clicked the wrong tiles. I found myself staring at execution logs thinking "did it even see the grid correctly?" and realized I just wanted to watch it work. So we…
In plain words
Rtrvr.ai provides live VNC debugging for DOM-native web agents running on Cloud Run. The tool allows developers to watch and take over serverless Chrome workers in real time, addressing the challenge of debugging why agents fail at captcha challenges like image selection. It handles Google reCAPTCHA by traversing cross-origin iframes and shadow DOM without relying on screenshot-based vision. The platform uses session affinity and token-based pairing to ensure deterministic viewer-to-runner connections while keeping runner instances clean.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hi HN, Bhavani here (rtrvr.ai). We build DOM-native web agents (no screenshot-based vision, no CDP/Playwright debugger-port control). We handle captchas natively including Google reCAPTCHA image challenges by traversing cross-origin iframes and shadow DOM. The latency is high on this one currently. The problem: when debugging image selection captchas ("select all images with traffic lights"), logs don't tell you why the agent clicked the wrong tiles. I found myself staring at execution logs thinking "did it even see the grid correctly?" and realized I just wanted to watch it work. So we built live VNC view + takeover for serverless Chrome workers on Cloud Run. Key learnings: 1. Session affinity is best-effort; "attach later" can hit a different instance 2. A separate relay service that pairs viewer↔runner by short-lived tokens makes attach deterministic 3. Runner stays clean: concurrency=1, one browser per container, no mixed traffic Would love feedback from folks who've shipped similar: 1. What replaced VNC for you (WebRTC etc) and why? 2. Best approach for recording/replay without huge storage? 3. How do you handle "attach later" safely in serverless?
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