AWS has announced the launch of its open source Nova Act extension, which allows developers to build browser automation agents in their IDE, reducing the need to switch between dev and test environments.
With the new extension, developers can use natural language to describe their workflow and then the Nova Act extension will generate an agent script. That script can then be modified in a notebook-style builder, where developers can integrate APIs, data sources, and authentication, and can validate it with local testing tools.
“This extension transforms my agent development workflow by positioning Nova Act extension as a full-stack agent builder tool—a complete agent IDE for the entire development lifecycle. I can prototype with natural language, customize with modular scripting, and validate with local testing—all without leaving my IDE—ensuring production-grade scripts,” Donnie Prakoso, principal developer advocate at AWS, wrote in a blog post.
It comes with a set of predefined templates for common automation scenarios, including online shopping tasks, data extraction, search and information gathering, quality assurance and testing workflows, and form completion and data entry.
The Nova Act extension currently can be used in Visual Studio Code, Cursor, and Kiro, and AWS plans to add support for more IDEs in the future.
