How To Use WebSailor AI (Your Free Internet Stalker Bot)

Tools & Scripts
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:brain: What Is WebSailor, and Why Should You Care?

WebSailor is an open-source AI agent made by Alibaba.
It doesn’t just “Google stuff” for you—it hunts the web like a caffeinated librarian, reads stuff, compares things, and gives you answers.
No, it won’t do your taxes. Yes, it will save you from 37 open tabs and a brain meltdown.

Here’s the link (yeah, it’s real):
:link: https://github.com/Alibaba-NLP/WebAgent

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:ladder: Super Simple Overview (No Brain Needed)

Get free Alibaba Cloud ➜ Click a few buttons ➜ Boom, your personal AI agent is alive

:zzz: Option 1: The Lazy Button (FunctionAI)

This is for people who don’t want to touch a single line of code.

Step 1: Sign Up for Free Stuff

  • Go to Alibaba Cloud’s Free Trial page
  • You get $300 credits (they’re basically begging you to try it)
  • Valid for a whole year—just enough time to forget your login

Step 2: Click Like a Pro

  • Inside your dashboard, search for FunctionAI
  • Find something called WebSailor-3B
  • Click Deploy (it means “go!” in nerd speak)
  • Choose random settings (it’ll work, trust)
  • Click Create

Wait a few minutes… tada!
Now you have an API endpoint. That’s a fancy link where your AI agent lives. Treat it better than your pet fish.

:firecracker: Option 2: The Painful Way (Manual Setup)

This is for control freaks, masochists, or those pretending to be software engineers on LinkedIn.

Step 1: Clone It Like a Hacker

git clone https://github.com/Alibaba-NLP/WebAgent.git
cd WebAgent/WebSailor

Step 2: Download the Model

  • Get WebSailor-3B from Hugging Face
  • It’s big and heavy, like your emotional baggage
  • Upload it to your OSS bucket (Alibaba’s cloud storage)

Step 3: Make a Bucket

  • Call it something serious, like websailor-model
  • Upload the model there
  • Pray the upload doesn’t crash

Step 4: Build the Function

  • Choose Python 3.12
  • Give it 8 GB RAM if you’re feeling generous
  • Add extra timeouts because it’s slow like Windows Updates

Step 5: Teach It to Talk

  • Use the deploy script from the repo
  • Install stuff with:

pip install -r requirements.txt

  • Make a function that loads the model and responds to questions
  • Pretend you understand what’s happening

Step 6: Test It

  • Use the console or CLI to poke it
  • It replies with JSON: AI’s love language

:zombie: Dumb-Proof Tricks

  • First run? It’ll take 500 years. Don’t panic. It’s downloading the model.
  • Add a warm-up function. Basically poke it so it doesn’t go back to sleep.
  • Use lifecycle rules to delete old files and avoid paying Alibaba a kidney.
  • Want it fast? Skip all this and use the Hugging Face version (slower, but zero brain effort).

:skull_and_crossbones: Warnings Before You Rage Quit

  • Cold starts are slow. Don’t scream, it’s normal.
  • If you mess up the OSS setup, nothing works and you’ll cry.
  • Function timeout too low? Your AI dies mid-sentence like a bad plot twist.

:clown_face: Reality Check

  • Works fine as of July 2025
  • Hugging Face version is slow but chill
  • Some Alibaba regions are weird. Just switch if something’s broken

:popcorn: The Zero-Effort Plan (aka Hugging Face Spaces)

Too tired for all that?

  1. Go to Hugging Face
  2. Search “WebSailor-3B”
  3. Click Run
  4. Lie to your friends that you built it from scratch

:speech_balloon: Final Words of Wisdom

Want to feel like you’ve got a personal intern who can read the entire internet faster than you blink?
Then WebSailor is your new imaginary friend.

Just don’t expect it to fix your life. Or your code. Or your ex.

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