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Merged
merged 3 commits into from
Aug 13, 2025
Merged

generate xpaths for namespaced elements #962

merged 3 commits into from
Aug 13, 2025

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seanmcguire12
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@seanmcguire12 seanmcguire12 commented Aug 12, 2025 •
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why

  • some nodes are namespaced, take a look at the nodeName & localName below:
{
    "nodeId": 19,
    "parentId": 17,
    "backendNodeId": 22,
    "nodeType": 1,
    "nodeName": "FOO:BAR",
    "localName": "foo:bar",
    "nodeValue": "",
    "childNodeCount": 1,
    "children": [],
    "attributes": []
}
  • currently, when we generate xpaths for elements that are namespaced, we generate them like this:
    • /html/body/foo:bar/div/select
  • the above path won't resolve
  • to fix this, we need to use the correct spec:
    • /html/body/*[name()='foo:bar']/div/select

what changed

  • added some logic to check for : in the xpath building step. if we find this, we format the path segment as defined above (/*[name()='foo:bar'])

test plan

  • added a new eval to test this case (namespace_xpath)
  • run act evals
  • run extract evals
  • run observe evals

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🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 5c3ab26

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Greptile Summary

This PR adds support for generating XPaths that properly handle namespaced XML/HTML elements. The core issue was that Stagehand's XPath generation was creating invalid paths for elements with namespaced tag names (containing colons, like foo:bar).

The change modifies the generateAccessibilityTreeXPath function in lib/a11y/utils.ts to detect when a tag name contains a colon and switches from the standard XPath syntax (foo:bar[index]) to the W3C XPath specification-compliant syntax (*[name()='foo:bar'][index]). This ensures that the generated XPaths can actually resolve in browsers, as standard XPath parsers don't handle namespaced elements without proper namespace declarations in the XPath context.

This fix is crucial for Stagehand's DOM traversal functionality when working with web applications that use XML namespaces or custom namespaced elements. The change is isolated to a single utility function that's used throughout Stagehand's accessibility tree processing, which means it will improve XPath generation across all of Stagehand's core features (act, extract, observe).

Confidence score: 4/5

  • This PR is safe to merge with minimal risk as it addresses a specific XPath generation bug
  • Score reflects a targeted fix with clear logic and proper XPath specification compliance
  • Pay close attention to lib/a11y/utils.ts to ensure the colon detection logic is robust

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@seanmcguire12 seanmcguire12 force-pushed the sean/stg-664-support-namespaced-xpaths branch from 61cb279 to 5c3ab26 Compare August 13, 2025 00:10
@seanmcguire12 seanmcguire12 added act These changes pertain to the act function extract These changes pertain to the extract function observe These changes pertain to the observe function targeted-extract These changes pertain to targeted extract labels Aug 13, 2025
@seanmcguire12 seanmcguire12 merged commit 72d2683 into main Aug 13, 2025
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miguelg719 pushed a commit that referenced this pull request Aug 19, 2025
@github-actions
Version Packages (#945)
b52e4f9 
This PR was opened by the [Changesets
release](https://github.com/changesets/action) GitHub action. When
you're ready to do a release, you can merge this and the packages will
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yet, that's fine, whenever you add more changesets to main, this PR will
be updated.


# Releases
## @browserbasehq/[email protected]

### Patch Changes

- [#951](#951)
[`f45afdc`](f45afdc)
Thanks [@miguelg719](https://github.com/miguelg719)! - Patch GPT-5 new
api format

- [#954](#954)
[`261bba4`](261bba4)
Thanks [@seanmcguire12](https://github.com/seanmcguire12)! - add support
for shadow DOMs (open & closed mode) when experimental: true

- [#944](#944)
[`8de7bd8`](8de7bd8)
Thanks [@seanmcguire12](https://github.com/seanmcguire12)! - Bump zod
version compatibility and add pathing spec

- [#919](#919)
[`3d80421`](3d80421)
Thanks [@seanmcguire12](https://github.com/seanmcguire12)! - enable
scrolling inside of iframes

- [#963](#963)
[`0ead63d`](0ead63d)
Thanks [@tkattkat](https://github.com/tkattkat)! - Properly handle
images in evaluator + clean up response parsing logic

- [#961](#961)
[`8422828`](8422828)
Thanks [@tkattkat](https://github.com/tkattkat)! - Add more evals for
stagehand agent

- [#946](#946)
[`b769206`](b769206)
Thanks [@seanmcguire12](https://github.com/seanmcguire12)! - fix: unable
to act on/get content from some same process iframes

- [#962](#962)
[`72d2683`](72d2683)
Thanks [@seanmcguire12](https://github.com/seanmcguire12)! - handle
namespaced elements in xpath build step

## @browserbasehq/[email protected]

### Patch Changes

- Updated dependencies
\[[`f45afdc`](f45afdc),
[`261bba4`](261bba4),
[`8de7bd8`](8de7bd8),
[`3d80421`](3d80421),
[`0ead63d`](0ead63d),
[`8422828`](8422828),
[`b769206`](b769206),
[`72d2683`](72d2683)]:
    -   @browserbasehq/[email protected]

## @browserbasehq/[email protected]

### Patch Changes

- Updated dependencies
\[[`f45afdc`](f45afdc),
[`261bba4`](261bba4),
[`8de7bd8`](8de7bd8),
[`3d80421`](3d80421),
[`0ead63d`](0ead63d),
[`8422828`](8422828),
[`b769206`](b769206),
[`72d2683`](72d2683)]:
    -   @browserbasehq/[email protected]

Co-authored-by: github-actions[bot] <41898282+github-actions[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
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