Steel

Documentation from steel-dev/steel-convex, recorded October 23, 2026. APIs and setup may differ in the Bijection adaptation.

Steel Convex Component

A Convex component for Steel cloud browser sessions. Manage browser sessions, scrape pages, solve captchas, and handle files — all from your Convex actions, with built-in multi-tenant isolation.

Features:

• Multi-tenant sessions — Every operation is scoped by ownerId. Tenant A never sees Tenant B's sessions.
• Full session lifecycle — Create, refresh, release, bulk-refresh, and bulk-release browser sessions.
• Scraping & screenshots — Scrape a page, take a screenshot, or generate a PDF in a single call.
• Captcha solving — Check captcha status, solve text captchas, or solve image captchas on any session.
• Profiles & credentials — Persist browser profiles and saved logins across sessions.
• Extensions & files — Upload browser extensions, attach files to sessions, or manage global files.
• Convex-native state — Session state is persisted in your Convex database, queryable in real time from your frontend.

Quick Start

1. Install

Copy codenpm install @steel-dev/convex convex

2. Mount the component

In your convex/convex.config.ts:

Copy codeimport { defineApp } from "convex/server";
import steel from "@steel-dev/convex/convex.config";

const app = defineApp();
app.use(steel);
export default app;

3. Set your API key

Copy codenpx convex env set STEEL_API_KEY <your_steel_key>

4. Create your first session

In a Convex action file, e.g. convex/steelActions.ts:

Copy codeimport { action } from "./_generated/server";
import { components } from "./_generated/api";
import { SteelComponent } from "@steel-dev/convex";

const steel = new SteelComponent(components.steel, {
  STEEL_API_KEY: process.env.STEEL_API_KEY,
});

export const createSession = action({
  args: {},
  handler: async (ctx) =>
    steel.sessions.create(
      ctx,
      { sessionArgs: { timeout: 120000 } },
      { ownerId: "tenant-a" },
    ),
});

5. Run it

Copy codenpx convex dev
npx convex run steelActions:createSession

Modules

How it works

Steel handles the cloud browser. Convex handles the state. This component bridges both:

1. Your Convex action calls the Steel API to create or manage a browser session.
2. The component persists session state in your Convex database.
3. Your frontend can query session data in real time — no polling, no webhooks.

All operations are scoped by ownerId, so multi-tenant isolation is built in at the data layer.

Constructor options

Copy codeconst steel = new SteelComponent(components.steel, {
  STEEL_API_KEY: process.env.STEEL_API_KEY,  // API key (or set via env var)
  ownerId: "default-tenant",                  // Default ownerId for all calls
});

• STEEL_API_KEY — Your Steel API key. If omitted, falls back to process.env.STEEL_API_KEY.
• ownerId — Default owner for all method calls. Can be overridden per call via the options argument.

Troubleshooting

Missing STEEL_API_KEY — The Convex runtime does not inherit your shell environment. Set it explicitly:

Copy codenpx convex env set STEEL_API_KEY <your_key>

Schema file missing default export — Make sure convex/schema.ts uses export default defineSchema({...}), not a named export.

No matching export ... components — Import components from ./_generated/api, not ./_generated/server.

paginate() is only supported in the app — This is a known Convex limitation. The component uses take() internally instead of paginate().

Guides & Reference

• Getting Started Guide — step-by-step walkthrough with a real-world price monitor example
• API Reference — full method signatures for every module
• Demo project — working example app

Development

Copy codenpm run codegen:verify
npm run typecheck
npm run test
npm run build

npm run codegen:verify and npm test start a local anonymous Convex backend automatically, so they do not require a cloud CONVEX_DEPLOYMENT or deploy key in CI.

Live integration smoke test (requires a Steel API key):

Copy codeSTEEL_API_KEY=... STEEL_LIVE_TEST=1 npm test

License

MIT