diff --git a/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.spec.ts b/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.spec.ts
index 5a1c986db..de2cc2059 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.spec.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.spec.ts
@@ -238,6 +238,26 @@ describe('BrowserbaseSessionService', () => {
     expect(close).toHaveBeenCalledTimes(1);
   });
 
+  it('runs Stagehand with the hosted API disabled', async () => {
+    const service = new BrowserbaseSessionService();
+    const init = jest.fn().mockResolvedValue(undefined);
+    const close = jest.fn().mockResolvedValue(undefined);
+    const StagehandCtor = mockStagehandClass({ init, close });
+    jest.spyOn(service, 'loadStagehand').mockResolvedValue(StagehandCtor);
+
+    await service.createStagehand('session_1');
+
+    // disableAPI:true skips Stagehand's hosted POST /sessions/start (the source
+    // of "Unknown error: 400"); the session still resumes over CDP.
+    expect(StagehandCtor).toHaveBeenCalledWith(
+      expect.objectContaining({
+        env: 'BROWSERBASE',
+        browserbaseSessionID: 'session_1',
+        disableAPI: true,
+      }),
+    );
+  });
+
   it('navigateToUrl returns the friendly unavailable message when init keeps failing', async () => {
     const service = new BrowserbaseSessionService();
     jest
diff --git a/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.ts b/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.ts
index df858f8ef..24485d719 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/browserbase/browserbase-session.service.ts
@@ -167,11 +167,18 @@ export class BrowserbaseSessionService {
   async createStagehand(sessionId: string): Promise<Stagehand> {
     const Stagehand = await this.loadStagehand();
 
-    // Stagehand.init() resumes the session by calling the Browserbase API on
-    // its own internal SDK client (outside getBrowserbase()), so transient
-    // upstream failures there — e.g. "Premature close" — bypass the per-call
-    // retry that wraps our direct SDK calls. Retry init the same way, closing
-    // any half-initialized instance between attempts so we don't leak it.
+    // We create and own the Browserbase session ourselves, and this feature only
+    // needs CDP navigation plus local inference. Stagehand's default hosted-API
+    // mode adds a POST /sessions/start round-trip that is unnecessary here and is
+    // the source of opaque "Unknown error: <status>" failures. disableAPI:true
+    // skips it: the session still resumes over CDP and extract/act/agent run
+    // locally against ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
+    //
+    // init() still performs a Browserbase API round-trip to resume the session,
+    // whose transient failures — e.g. "Premature close" — bypass the retry that
+    // wraps our direct SDK calls, so retry init too, closing any half-initialized
+    // instance between attempts to avoid leaking it. Stagehand strips upstream
+    // error bodies from its throws, so forward its error logs into our logger.
     return this.withBrowserbaseRetry({
       operationName: 'stagehand initialization',
       operation: async () => {
@@ -180,11 +187,19 @@ export class BrowserbaseSessionService {
           apiKey: process.env.BROWSERBASE_API_KEY,
           projectId: this.getProjectId(),
           browserbaseSessionID: sessionId,
+          disableAPI: true,
           model: {
             modelName: STAGEHAND_MODEL,
             apiKey: process.env.ANTHROPIC_API_KEY,
           },
           verbose: 1,
+          logger: (line) => {
+            if ((line.level ?? 1) === 0) {
+              this.logger.error(
+                `Stagehand[${line.category ?? 'log'}]: ${line.message}`,
+              );
+            }
+          },
         });
 
         try {
diff --git a/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automation.ts b/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automation.ts
index 05dbf1d02..eb649e6c6 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automation.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automation.ts
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ async function sendTaskStatusChangeEmails(params: {
  */
 export const runBrowserAutomation = task({
   id: 'run-browser-automation',
-  maxDuration: 1000 * 60 * 10, // 10 minutes per automation
+  maxDuration: 60 * 10, // 10 minutes per automation — Trigger.dev maxDuration is in SECONDS
   queue: {
     concurrencyLimit: browserAutomationConcurrencyLimit(),
   },
diff --git a/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automations-schedule.ts b/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automations-schedule.ts
index d3aceb930..f06b42d88 100644
--- a/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automations-schedule.ts
+++ b/apps/api/src/trigger/browser-automation/run-browser-automations-schedule.ts
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ export function limitAutomationBatch<
 export const browserAutomationsSchedule = schedules.task({
   id: 'browser-automations-schedule',
   cron: '0 5 * * *', // Daily at 5:00 AM UTC
-  maxDuration: 1000 * 60 * 30, // 30 minutes
+  maxDuration: 60 * 30, // 30 minutes — Trigger.dev maxDuration is in SECONDS
   run: async (payload) => {
     logger.info('Starting daily browser automations orchestrator', {
       scheduledAt: payload.timestamp,