Docs/Use Cases/Self_Healing_RPA

Self-Healing Automation & RPA

Build automation scripts that survive UI updates. Replace brittle XPath selectors with semantic understanding.

The "Broken Selector" Crisis

Traditional automation relies on rigid CSS or XPath selectors. When a developer changes a class name or wraps a `div`, your bots crash.

Brittle Selectors

/html/body/div[2]/div/button[1]

Breaks instantly if the page layout shifts by even one pixel or one tag.

Maintenance Hell

Engineers spend up to 30% of their time just fixing broken scraping scripts after site updates.

The Solution: Semantic Discovery

Instead of looking for div#btn-123, ask Sentience to find "The Login Button". The API analyzes the page structurally and semantically to locate elements regardless of underlying code changes.

Observe

Send the URL to our Geometry Engine (`map` mode). We render the DOM and extract all interactive elements.

Filter & Match

Our response includes semantic data: `role`, `text`, `attributes`. Your script finds the element matching specific criteria (e.g., Role="button" AND Text="Sign In").

Act

Use the returned robust `selector` or precise `bbox` coordinates to drive your Selenium/Puppeteer/Playwright instance.

Workflow Examples

Resilient automation patterns

Self-Healing Selector Lookup

Dynamically fetch valid selectors at runtime instead of hardcoding them:

1def find_element_resilient(url, target_text, target_role):
2    # 1. Ask Sentience what is on the page right now
3    response = sentience.observe(url, mode="map")
4
5    # 2. Find the element semantically (not by ID/Class)
6    for element in response["interactable_elements"]:
7        if (element["text"].lower() == target_text.lower() and
8            element["role"] == target_role):
9
10            # 3. Return a working selector or coordinates
11            return element["selector"] # e.g., "button[data-testid='submit-v2']"
12
13# Usage in Playwright/Selenium
14selector = find_element_resilient(driver.current_url, "Checkout", "button")
15driver.click(selector)

✅ Outcome: If the "Checkout" button ID changes from `#btn-1` to `#btn-final`, this script still works.

Dynamic Form Filling

Identify form fields by their semantic purpose (email, password) rather than position:

1// API Request
2{
3  "url": "https://signup.example.com",
4  "mode": "map",
5  "options": {
6    "filter": {
7      "allowed_roles": ["textbox", "button"]
8    }
9  }
10}
11
12// Logic:
13// 1. Find element where attributes.type = "email" OR text contains "Email"
14// 2. Find element where attributes.type = "password"
15// 3. Find button where text contains "Sign Up"