SOP 004: CAPTCHA Solving

Fresh

Field	Value
SOP ID	SOP-004
Version	1.0
Status	Active
Source	Steel CAPTCHA Docs

Overview

Steel uses a two-pronged approach: prevention (stealth fingerprinting) and automatic solving when CAPTCHAs do appear.

Prerequisites

• Steel account (Developer plan or higher)
• steel-sdk installed

CAPTCHA Handling Flow

Supported CAPTCHA Types

Type	Status
ReCAPTCHA v2/v3	Supported
Cloudflare Turnstile	Supported
ImageToText	Supported
Amazon AWS WAF	Supported
GeeTest v3/v4	Coming Soon
FunCAPTCHA	Not Supported
Custom/Enterprise	Not Supported

Procedure

Step 1: Enable Auto-Solving

const session = await client.sessions.create({
  solveCaptcha: true
});

Step 2: Detect-Only Mode (Optional)

const session = await client.sessions.create({
  solveCaptcha: true,
  stealthConfig: {
    autoCaptchaSolving: false
  }
});

Step 3: Manual Solving

// Solve all detected CAPTCHAs
await client.sessions.captchas.solve('sessionId');

// Solve specific task
await client.sessions.captchas.solve('sessionId', { taskId: 'task_123' });

// Solve by URL
await client.sessions.captchas.solve('sessionId', { url: 'https://example.com' });

// Solve by Page ID
await client.sessions.captchas.solve('sessionId', { pageId: 'page_123' });

Step 4: Implement Waiting Strategies

// Wait for network to settle
await page.waitForNetworkIdle();
// Safety buffer for CAPTCHA solving
await page.waitForTimeout(2000);

Best Practices

1. Use Steel's fingerprinting to avoid CAPTCHAs entirely
2. Reuse successful sessions to maintain trust signals
3. Implement natural delays between actions
4. Vary request patterns - avoid rapid, repetitive actions
5. Increase session timeout for CAPTCHA-heavy sites

Verification Checklist

• [ ] Session created with solveCaptcha: true
• [ ] CAPTCHA auto-detected on page
• [ ] CAPTCHA solved within reasonable time
• [ ] Automation continues after solve
• [ ] Error handling in place for solve failures

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
CAPTCHA not detected	Ensure solveCaptcha: true is set
Solve timeout	Increase session timeout, implement exponential backoff
Repeated CAPTCHAs	Use proxy rotation, add natural delays
Unsupported type	Implement manual solving or fallback strategy

See Also

• SOP 003: Configure Proxies
• SOP 005: Reuse Auth Context