Repository: UKGovernmentBEIS/inspect_ai
Issue: Browser Tool use doesn't allow filling information into comboboxes
Root cause: Validation Gap

**Summary**
a specific eval in which an agent has to navigate a webpage and fill in information into a form fails now because the agent is not able to fill necessary information into a number of comboboxes (HTML select tag). From my understanding, this appears to be due to the tool itself and not the agent mis-specifying the action of entering the information.

Used inspect version: 0.3.100

The agent performs e.g. an input attempt to specify a month:

```
web_browser_type(element_id: 453, text: "January")
```

But the new information is not shown in the updated accessibility tree:
```
        [449] group "Date of birth" 
          [451] LabelText 
            [295] StaticText "Month" 
          [453] combobox "Month"  [focused: True, hasPopup: menu, expanded, labelledby]
          [503] LabelText 
            [296] StaticText "Day" 
          [505] combobox "Day"  [hasPopup: menu, expanded, labelledby]
          [612] LabelText 
            [297] StaticText "Year" 
          [614] combobox "Year"  [hasPopup: menu, expanded, labelledby]
      [994] button "Next"  [disabled: True]
```

The webpage is provided by a Flask server. I just noticed that the eval in question has a very unwieldy HTML that I cannot share here.

I reproduced the issue via a new (dummy) HTML.
HTML:
```html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <title>Birthdate Form</title>
</head>

<body>
  <h1>Enter Your Birthdate (dummycode 93gj0x)</h1>
  <form action="#" method="post">
    <div>
      <label for="birth_day">Day:</label>
      <input type="number" id="birth_day" name="birth_day" min="1" max="31" required>
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="birth_month">Month:</label>
      <select id="birth_month" name="birth_month" required>
        <option value="">--Select--</option>
        <option value="1">January</option>
        <option value="2">February</option>
        <option value="3">March</option>
        <option value="4">April</option>
        <option value="5">May</option>
        <option value="6">June</option>
        <option value="7">July</option>
        <option value="8">August</option>
        <option value="9">September</option>
        <option value="10">October</option>
        <option value="11">November</option>
        <option value="12">December</option>
      </select>
    </div>
    <div>
      <label for="birth_year">Year:</label>
      <input type="number" id="birth_year" name="birth_year" min="1900" max="2025" required>
    </div>
    <button type="submit">Submit</button>
  </form>
</body>

</html>
```

This is the accessibility tree the agents sees:
```
[267] heading "Enter Your Birthdate (dummycode 93gj0x)" 
[270] LabelText 
  [253] StaticText "Day:" 
[271] spinbutton "Day:"  [editable: plaintext, required: True, valuemin: 1, valuemax: 31, valuetext, labelledby]
[277] LabelText 
  [256] StaticText "Month:" 
[278] combobox "Month:"  [hasPopup: menu, expanded, labelledby]
[325] LabelText 
  [258] StaticText "Year:" 
[326] spinbutton "Year:"  [editable: plaintext, required: True, valuemin: 1900, valuemax: 2025, valuetext, labelledby]
[331] button "Submit"
```

The agent then performs (as shown in the main issue post) e.g. following action:
```
web_browser_type(element_id: 278, text: "April")
```

After which the returned accessibility tree remains unchanged.

Thanks for reporting and for the repro!  @epatey is taking a closer look.