Selenium

# Fix list: Selenium

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/selenium, the October 2026 research run, assessed 14 October 2026. Grade BB, 73.6 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Selenium: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Security & auth, 43 out of 100, up to 10 more on the total

Why it scored 43: No credential for the bindings. Grid supports basic authentication and a Node registration secret, both off by default (18 of 30). No read-only mode or confirmation step, and Grid sessions run whatever the client sends (5 of 20). Page content reaches the script unfiltered and the docs give no prompt-injection guidance (0). Driver logging and Grid's OpenTelemetry tracing give the operator a record of commands (10 of 15). The organisation's SECURITY.md names security@seleniumhq.org. No bug bounty, no security.txt and no advisories in OSV for the PyPI, npm or Grid packages (10 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-security):

- 0 to 30, the credential model. 30 for OAuth 2.1 with scopes, or scoped and revocable keys with rotation. 20 for plain revocable API keys. 10 for one all-powerful key. 10 off when a secret can travel in a URL query string as a documented option.
- 0 to 20, read-only or least-privilege modes, and confirmation or approval for destructive actions.
- 0 to 15, prompt-injection posture where the tool returns untrusted content (documented mitigations or guidance). A tool that returns no untrusted content gets 10.
- 0 to 15, audit logs or per-call visibility for the operator.
- 0 to 20, a security programme. security.txt or a disclosure policy, a bug bounty, SOC 2 or ISO 27001, advisories handled in public.

Models are read for retention, whether API data trains models (and whether that's off by default), zero-retention options and certifications. Frameworks for telemetry defaults, approval hooks, guardrails and sandboxing.

## 2. Payments & pricing, 60 out of 100, up to 5 more on the total

Why it scored 60: Free, self-hosted, nothing to buy, so 20 + 20 + 20 under the self-hosted rule. No payment protocol (0).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-payments):

The published rubric, also on the [x402 page](https://www.anchorterminal.com/x402/).

- 40, a machine payment protocol (x402, MPP or L402) on the tool's own endpoints. 10 to 30 when it covers only some endpoints or only goes through a third party, and the note says which.
- 20, per-call or per-unit pricing published without a login. 10 for public plan-only pricing, 0 for "contact sales" or prices behind a login.
- 20, a free tier or trial that doesn't need a card.
- 20, autonomous onboarding, meaning an agent can get access without a person signing up in a browser (keyless use, x402, a programmatic key API).

Payment platforms and agent wallets rarely charge for their own API over a machine protocol, so the first line has steps for them, and the highest one that applies counts. 40 when x402, MPP or L402 runs on all their own endpoints, 30 when it runs on part of their own API, 25 when their merchants can accept one, 20 for running a facilitator, 15 for paying as a buyer, and 0 when the only protocol is their own. Merchant acceptance sits above a facilitator because the platform's own customers can charge agents through it, while a facilitator settles for sellers who wire up the protocol themselves. The counter-argument (a facilitator does more for the protocol as a whole) has a point. Each note says which step applied.

Open-source software you run yourself is scored on its hosted or paid option if it has one. A free, self-hosted package with nothing to buy gets 20, 20 and 20 for the last three lines, and 0 to 40 for the first only if it ships a payment protocol.

## 3. Agent ergonomics, 70 out of 100, up to 4.9 more on the total

Why it scored 70: A library adds no tool definitions to context. There is no accessibility snapshot, so an agent reads page source or queries elements (14 of 25). `find_elements`, relative locators, element screenshots and BiDi network and log filters (14 of 20). Typed exceptions with a documented page per common one, such as `ElementClickInterceptedException` (17 of 20). Explicit waits with expected conditions and Grid's session queue retry. No idempotency concept applies (10 of 20). Selenium Manager fetches drivers so a first script needs no setup, and five official languages (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-ergonomics):

- 0 to 25, context cost. For MCP, the number and size of the tool definitions (25 for ten or fewer compact tools, 15 for 11 to 30, 5 for more than 30, plus up to 10 back for toolsets, dynamic loading or read-only subsets). For APIs, whether responses can be sized (field selection, limits, summaries).
- 20, pagination, filtering and output-size controls.
- 20, actionable, documented error responses, codes and messages an agent can recover from.
- 20, idempotency or safe retries, and for MCP the `readOnlyHint` and `destructiveHint` annotations.
- 15, sensible defaults, few required parameters, and official SDKs in at least two languages.

Models are read for tool use, structured output, prompt caching, context length, batch and SDKs. Frameworks for how much code and how many defaults a tool-calling agent with MCP needs.

## 4. Transparency & trust, 74 out of 100, up to 2.3 more on the total

Made of editorial 80, provenance 68.

Why it scored 74: Apache-2.0, held by Software Freedom Conservancy (30). No privacy page on selenium.dev. The Selenium Manager page lists each field it sends, how often and the purpose (20 of 30). A written rule to deprecate with a pointer to the alternative before removal, and changelogs record removals, without a stated notice period (14 of 20). Telemetry is disclosed with three opt-outs, but on by default (16 of 20).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-transparency):

- 0 to 30, source availability and licence clarity. 30 for open source under an OSI licence, 15 for closed with clear terms, 0 for unclear terms.
- 0 to 30, data handling and retention statements that agree with each other (privacy policy, DPA, retention periods, subprocessors).
- 0 to 20, a deprecation policy or notices with dates.
- 0 to 20, telemetry disclosed with an opt-out (local software), or subprocessors and data locations disclosed (hosted).

The other half of Transparency and trust is the provenance score, computed from checked facts (below). The category score is the mean of the two.

Provenance checks not met in full (half of this category, computed from checked facts):

- Domain age: selenium.dev, registered 2019-02-22 (7 years) (11 of 15)
- Status page: not found (0 of 10)
- security.txt: not found (0 of 10)

## 5. Reliability, 90 out of 100, up to 2 more on the total

Why it scored 90: Scored as local software. Official packages on PyPI, npm, Maven, NuGet and RubyGems at 4.51.0, with Python 3.10 and Node.js 22 stated (20). Public CI per binding plus Grid and Selenium Manager jobs, and the 15 most recent runs on trunk on 13 October 2026 succeeded except one cancelled cache job (25). 189 open issues and pull requests across five bindings, labelled by component, with a Grid regression in round-robin slot selection (open since 2 October) and an idle-session issue with 27 comments (21 of 25). The project says it does not follow semver, but deprecates before removal and lists removals in each binding's changelog (9 of 15). 4.x, marked Production/Stable on PyPI (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reliability):

Hosted APIs, MCP servers, models and platforms.

- 20, a public status page with component history (Statuspage, Instatus, BetterStack or the vendor's own).
- 0 to 30, the incident record for the last 90 days on that page. 30 for a clean record or trivial incidents only, 20 for minor incidents only, 10 for one major outage (an hour or more of a core API down, or errors across the board), 0 for several. 5 when there's no history we could read, and the note says so.
- 15, rate limits documented with numbers.
- 15, documented 429 or overload handling (Retry-After, backoff guidance), and idempotency keys or safe-retry guidance where writes are involved.
- 10, an SLA published for any paid tier.
- 10, the surface agents use is generally available, not beta or preview.

Local packages, SDKs, frameworks and stdio MCP servers.

- 20, installs from an official package with supported runtimes stated.
- 25, a public CI and test suite, passing on the default branch.
- 0 to 25, open crash or regression issues relative to activity (25 for few and handled, 0 for many, old and unanswered).
- 15, semver discipline and breaking changes called out in a changelog.
- 15, version 1.0 or later, or declared stable.

Protocols are read from their reference implementations, the public facilitators or servers, spec stability and test vectors.

## 6. Schema & documentation, 89 out of 100, up to 1.8 more on the total

Why it scored 89: Graded as a library and a WebDriver server. Typed bindings, a `py.typed` marker and the W3C WebDriver specification as the wire contract. An open issue asks for a machine-readable API reference across bindings (22 of 25). llms.txt with notes for code generators (10). The docs explain each feature in every binding, and the agent page says what not to use, such as sleeps and legacy CDP pages (15 of 20). Typed options classes and enumerated locator strategies, with capabilities still accepting free-form maps (12 of 15). Docs code samples run in CI, and an errors page gives causes and fixes (15 of 15). Versioned releases and a changelog per binding (15).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-schema):

APIs and MCP servers.

- 25, a machine-readable contract (a public OpenAPI file or similar; for MCP, typed JSON Schema inputs on every tool).
- 10, llms.txt or Markdown docs served for agents.
- 0 to 20, descriptions that say what a tool is for, when to use it and when not to, read from the tool definitions in the source or the API reference.
- 0 to 15, typed inputs with enums, constraints and required fields, and no free-form JSON blobs.
- 0 to 15, examples and documented error responses.
- 15, versioning and a public changelog.

Models are read from the API reference, the OpenAPI file, llms.txt, the structured-output and tool-use docs and the model cards. Frameworks from docs a model can follow, typed interfaces, examples and the API reference.

## 7. Maintenance & community, 94 out of 100, up to 0.5 more on the total

Why it scored 94: 4.51.0 on 9 October 2026 (30). Five releases since 10 August 2026 (20). Most of the newest 30 open issues and pull requests have comments and component labels, and pull requests from 13 October already had replies (20 of 25). Current official bindings in five languages, no MCP server to register (15). CI green, Renovate updates dependencies and browser pins (9 of 10).

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-maintenance):

- 0 to 30, time since the last release, or the last published model or API change for a closed service. 30 within 30 days, 20 within 90, 10 within 180, 0 older.
- 20, at least three releases or dated changelog entries in the last 90 days.
- 0 to 25, responsiveness. Issues and pull requests answered on GitHub (the open issues and how recent the replies are). For closed services, a public changelog and a support or community channel that answers, 0 to 15.
- 15, presence in the official MCP registry under a verified namespace (MCP servers), or current official SDKs (APIs and models).
- 10, package health, current dependencies and CI.

Models are read for deprecation notice periods and model churn rather than release counts.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Maven, NuGet and RubyGems download counts were not read.
- Whether Grid's GraphQL endpoint is covered by its basic authentication was not established from the docs read.

## Weaknesses

- No MCP server from the project. The docs point to community servers and say they are third-party
- Selenium Manager sends anonymised usage statistics to Plausible once a day by default, until `SE_AVOID_STATS=true` is set
- Grid has no authentication unless `--username` and `--password` are both set
- The project says it does not follow semantic versioning, and removes deprecated APIs in minor releases
- No accessibility snapshot call, so agents read page source or query elements one by one

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Install with `pip install selenium` (Python 3.10 or later) and let Selenium Manager fetch drivers. Do not set driver paths
- Use `WebDriverWait` with expected conditions, never fixed sleeps, and do not mix implicit and explicit waits
- Set `SE_AVOID_STATS=true` to stop Selenium Manager sending usage statistics
- Point coding agents at https://www.selenium.dev/llms.txt. Most Selenium 2 and 3 era examples use removed APIs
- Set `--username` and `--password` before exposing a Grid beyond localhost. Check `http://localhost:4444/status` before creating sessions

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.