Previews in Windsurf allow you to view the local deployment of your app either in the IDE or in the browser (optimized for Google Chrome, Arc, and Chromium based browsers) with listeners, allowing you to iterate rapidly by easily sending elements and errors back to Cascade as context. Previews are opened via tool call, so just ask Cascade to preview your app to get started. Alternatively, you can also click the Web icon in the Cascade toolbar to automatically propagate the natural language prompt to enter the proxy.

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Send Elements to Cascade

In the Preview, you can select and send elements/components and errors directly to Cascade. Simply click on the “Send element” button on the bottom right and then proceed to select the element you want to send. The selected element will be inserted into your current Cascade prompt as an @ mention. You can add as many elements as you want in the prompt.

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In-IDE Preview

Windsurf can open a up a Preview as a new tab in your editor. This is a simple web view that enables you to view web app alongside your Cascade panel. Because these Previews are hosted locally, you can open them in your system browser as well, complete with all the listeners and ability to select and send elements and console errors to Cascade.
The listeners and the abilities to send elements and errors are optimized for Google Chrome, Arc, and Chromium based browsers.

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How to Disable

When you click on the Web icon, it will give you the option to click on “Disable previews”. You can also do this from Windsurf - Settings. This will prevent Cascade from making this tool call.