CanvasObs: Structured Spatial Observation for Agent Editing on 2D Infinite Canvases

Overview & Synopsis

Editing agents on 2D infinite canvases must reason about application state that pixels may not reveal. Targets may be offscreen or covered, while visual containment and touching arrows may disagree with recorded frame membership or connector bindings. We ask how a structured observation layer can support accurate object selection during agentic editing on 2D infinite canvases. We present CanvasObs, which augments visual context with a structured payload and guidance for reading four components: Identity & State, Visibility & Structure, Relations, and Offscreen Object bounds in action coordinates. A Remote Team Handoff case study illustrates retrieving an editable offscreen copy, choosing a covered chart by color, separating cards by frame membership, and preserving an evidence connection. We turn these cases into ten controlled configurations and compare CanvasObs with the baseline agent in 1,200 browser trials across three models. CanvasObs improves Correct target for every model. Combined across models, it raises Correct target from 16.5% to 48.3%, an increase of 31.8 percentage points (95% confidence interval [29.0, 34.7]), and Full task success from 4.3% to 25.0%. These results show that compact structured observation can improve object choice on 2D infinite canvases without redesigning the editing pipeline.