> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.finic.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Development

> How build new automations using Finic.

These are instructions for how to builds a new automation from scratching using Finic. See [Finic Recorder](/development/finic-recorder) for how to automatically generate an automation with the
Finic chrome extension.

## Initializing a new project

Install Finic globally with `pip install finic` or `pipx install finic`.
Then run the following command to create a new Finic automation in the current directory.

```bash theme={null}
$ finic init <automation-name>
```

This automatically sets up your project structure, including some boilerplate code. Your code should go in `main.py`.

## Providing inputs

Most automations will require input varibles to be provided at runtime. This can include auth secrets like usernames and passwords, variables that define
the automation's behavior, or values that should be input into form fields.

### Local

You can include input values in a file called `finic_input.json` in the root directory of your project. This automaticaly gets picked up by Finic and passed into your `main` function.

### Production

In production, you can specify inputs for a task when running it manually from the Finic dashboard, or by specifying it in a `task_input` parameter in the request body when
triggering a task from the API.

## Defining selectors

Selectors should be placed in `selectors.yaml` (see the example below). Both XPath and CSS selectors are supported.

They can then be accessed directly from the Finic client, assuming the `selector_source` is set to `file`.

```python theme={null}
finic = Finic(selector_source='file')
finic.selectors.get('email_field')
```

Selectors can also be defined directly in your code, although this approach makes your code harder to read and less modular.

## Example

Here's an example of a basic automation.

<CodeGroup>
  ```python main.py theme={null}
  from playwright.sync_api import Playwright
  from finic_py import Finic

  @Finic.entrypoint()
  def main(input: Dict):
      finic = Finic(selector_source='file')
      page, context = finic.launch_browser_sync(headless=False, slow_mo=500)
      page.goto("https://practicetestautomation.com/practice-test-login/")
      
      if page.locator(finic.selectors.get('username_field')).count() > 0:
          page.locator(finic.selectors.get('username_field')).fill(input.get('username_field'))
          page.locator(finic.selectors.get('password_field')).fill(input.get('password_field'))
          page.locator(finic.selectors.get('login_button')).click()

      context.close()
  ```

  ```yaml selectors.py theme={null}
  username_field: //input[@name="username"]
  password_field: //input[@name="password"]
  login_button: //button[@name="submit"]
  ```

  ```json finic_input.json theme={null}
  {
      "username_field": "example_username",
      "password_field": "password1234"
  }
  ```
</CodeGroup>