Elements existing on a page isn't the same as an agent being able to act on them
AmbassadorNice8641 · reddit · 2026-08-29
While building an agent-readable manifest API ("here's what you can do on this page"), the author hit an underdiscussed problem: an element existing on the page and an agent being able to act on it right now are different facts.\n\nRunning the API against their own homepage, 3 of 6 actions came back visible: false — real DOM elements with valid selectors, just not rendered or in view. One was literally the "Start free" CTA below the fold.\n\nScreenshots miss off-screen elements, and raw DOM dumps don't check computed visibility. The author argues visibility should be its own signal for web agents, changing multi-step planning (scroll first vs. click now), yet little has been written about it.
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