Agentic setup flow via setup.steel.dev: auto-install CLI + skill, interrupt user only for auth #59
Description
We should introduce a new agent-first setup flow where the agent can read a Steel-hosted setup contract, perform the local installation steps automatically, and only ask the user to do one thing: click an auth link.
Problem
Today, time-to-first-result has too many papercuts:
- user runs install script
- user installs skill separately
- user creates Steel account
- user goes through onboarding
- user copies API key
- user pastes API key / authenticates manually
- user finally tries first browser task
This creates multiple churn points and requires the user to learn Steel before Steel has done anything useful for them.
For users who already have an agent environment set up, the real job-to-be-done is:
“Give my agent browser capability with the fewest possible actions on my side.”
Proposal
Add a hosted setup entry point, for example:
https://setup.steel.dev/install.md
The agent reads that file and performs setup automatically.
Target flow:
- agent reads setup instructions from setup.steel.dev
- agent installs Steel CLI
- agent installs steel-browser skill
- agent starts auth flow
- user is asked to click one link
- agent detects auth completion
- agent runs a smoke test (opportunity for telemetry)
- agent continues with the original user task
Even though now we only supports cli + skill, the setup system should be designed as a strategy-based contract, not hardcoded to one path forever. We should plan for future strategies like native integrations.
As a sidenote, when deciding on this, worth having in mind, is this RFC