BrowserStack Runner

A command line interface to run browser tests over BrowserStack.

Usage

Install globally:

npm -g install browserstack-runner

Then, after setting up the configuration, run tests with:

browserstack-runner

You can also install locally and run the local binary:

npm install browserstack-runner
node_modules/.bin/browserstack-runner

If you're getting an error EACCES open ... BrowserStackLocal, configure npm to install modules using something other than the default "nobody" user:

npm -g config set user [user]

Where [user] is replaced with a local user with enough permissions.

Usage as a module

browserstack-runner can also be used as a module. To run your tests, inside your project do -

var browserstackRunner = require('browserstack-runner');

var config = require('./browserstack.json');

browserstackRunner.run(config, function(error, report) {
  if(error) {
    console.log("Error:" + error);
    return;
  }
  console.log(JSON.stringify(report, null, 2));
  console.log("Test Finished");
});

The callback to browserstackRunner.run is called with two params -

• error: This parameter is either null or an Error object (if test execution failed) with message as the reason of why executing the tests on BrowserStack failed.
• report: This is an array which can be used to keep track of the executed tests and suites in a run. Each object in the array has the following keys -
  • browser: The name of the browser the test executed on.
  • tests: An array of Test objects. The Test Objects are described here
  • suites: A global Suite Object as described here

The structure of the report object is as follows -

[
  {
    "browser": "Windows 7, Firefox 47.0",
    "tests": [
      {
        "name": "isOdd()",
        "suiteName": "Odd Tests",
        "fullName": [
          "Odd Tests",
          "isOdd()"
        ],
        "status": "passed",
        "runtime": 2,
        "errors": [],
        "assertions": [
          {
            "passed": true,
            "actual": true,
            "expected": true,
            "message": "One is an odd number"
          },
          {
            "passed": true,
            "actual": true,
            "expected": true,
            "message": "Three is an odd number"
          },
          {
            "passed": true,
            "actual": true,
            "expected": true,
            "message": "Zero is not odd number"
          }
        ]
      }
    ],
    "suites": {
      "fullName": [],
      "childSuites": [
        {
          "name": "Odd Tests",
          "fullName": [
            "Odd Tests"
            ],
          "childSuites": [],
          "tests": [
            {
              "name": "isOdd()",
              "suiteName": "Odd Tests",
              "fullName": [
                "Odd Tests",
                "isOdd()"
              ],
              "status": "passed",
              "runtime": 2,
              "errors": [],
              "assertions": [
                {
                  "passed": true,
                  "actual": true,
                  "expected": true,
                  "message": "One is an odd number"
                },
                {
                  "passed": true,
                  "actual": true,
                  "expected": true,
                  "message": "Three is an odd number"
                },
                {
                  "passed": true,
                  "actual": true,
                  "expected": true,
                  "message": "Zero is not odd number"
                }
              ]
            }
          ],
          "status": "passed",
          "testCounts": {
            "passed": 1,
            "failed": 0,
            "skipped": 0,
            "total": 1
          },
          "runtime": 2
        }
      ],
      "tests": [],
      "status": "passed",
      "testCounts": {
        "passed": 1,
        "failed": 0,
        "skipped": 0,
        "total": 1
      },
      "runtime": 2
    }
  }
]

Configuration

To run browser tests on BrowserStack infrastructure, you need to create a browserstack.json file in project's root directory (the directory from which tests are run), by running this command:

browserstack-runner init

Parameters for browserstack.json

• username: BrowserStack username (Or BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME environment variable)
• key: BrowserStack access key (Or BROWSERSTACK_KEY environment variable)
• test_path: Path to the test page which will run the tests when opened in a browser.
• test_framework: Specify test framework which will run the tests. Currently supporting qunit, jasmine, jasmine1.3.1, jasmine2 and mocha.
• test_server_port: Specify test server port that will be opened from BrowserStack. If not set the default port 8888 will be used. Find a list of all supported ports on browerstack.com.
• timeout: Specify worker timeout with BrowserStack.
• browsers: A list of browsers on which tests are to be run. Find a list of all supported browsers and platforms on browerstack.com.
• build: A string to identify your test run in Browserstack. In TRAVIS setup TRAVIS_COMMIT will be the default identifier.
• proxy: Specify a proxy to use for the local tunnel. Object with host, port, username and password properties.
• exit_with_fail: If set to true the cli process will exit with fail if any of the tests failed. Useful for automatic build systems.
• tunnel_pid_file: Specify a path to file to save the tunnel process id into. Can also by specified using the --pid flag while launching browserstack-runner from the command line.

A sample configuration file:

{
  "username": "<username>",
  "key": "<access key>",
  "test_framework": "qunit|jasmine|jasmine2|mocha",
  "test_path": ["relative/path/to/test/page1", "relative/path/to/test/page2"],
  "test_server_port": "8899",
  "browsers": [
    {
      "browser": "ie",
      "browser_version": "10.0",
      "device": null,
      "os": "Windows",
      "os_version": "8"
    },
    {
      "os": "android",
      "os_version": "4.0",
      "device": "Samsung Galaxy Nexus"
    },
    {
      "os": "ios",
      "os_version": "7.0",
      "device": "iPhone 5S"
    }
  ]
}

browsers parameter

browsers parameter is a list of objects, where each object contains the details of the browsers on which you want to run your tests. This object differs for browsers on desktop platforms and browsers on mobile platforms. Browsers on desktop platform should contain browser, browser_version, os , os_version parameters set as required.

Example:

{
      "browser": "ie",
      "browser_version": "10.0",
      "os": "Windows",
      "os_version": "8"
}

For mobile platforms, os, os_version and device parameters are required.

Example:

[{
	"os": "ios",
	"os_version": "8.3",
	"device": "iPhone 6 Plus"
},
{
	"os": "android",
	"os_version": "4.0",
	"device": "Google Nexus"
}
]

For a full list of supported browsers, platforms and other details, visit the BrowserStack site.

Compact browsers configuration

When os and os_version granularity is not desired, following configuration can be used:

• [browser]_current or browser_latest: will assign the latest version of the browser.
• [browser]_previous: will assign the previous version of the browser.
• [browser]_[version]: will assign the version specified of the browser. Minor versions can be concatenated with underscores.

This can also be mixed with fine-grained configuration.

Example:

{
  "browsers": [
      "chrome_previous",
      "chrome_latest",
      "firefox_previous",
      "firefox_latest",
      "ie_6",
      "ie_11",
      "opera_12_1",
      "safari_5_1",
      {
        "browser": "ie",
        "browser_version": "10.0",
        "device": null,
        "os": "Windows",
        "os_version": "8"
      }
  ]
}

Note: These shortcuts work only for browsers on desktop platforms supported by BrowserStack.

Proxy support for BrowserStack local

Add the following in browserstack.json

{
  "proxy": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 3128,
      "username": "foo",
      "password": "bar"
  }
}

Supported environment variables

To avoid duplication of system or user specific information across several configuration files, use these environment variables:

• BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME: BrowserStack user name.
• BROWSERSTACK_KEY: BrowserStack key.
• TUNNEL_ID: Identifier for the current instance of the tunnel process. In TRAVIS setup TRAVIS_JOB_ID will be the default identifier.
• BROWSERSTACK_JSON: Path to the browserstack.json file. If null, browserstack.json in the root directory will be used.

Secure Information

To avoid checking in the BrowserStack username and key in your source control system, the corresponding environment variables can be used.

These can also be provided by a build server, for example using secure environment variables on Travis CI.

Code Sample

Check out code sample [here]. [here]:https://github.com/browserstack/browserstack-runner-sample

Running Tests

BrowserStack Runner is currently tested by running test cases defined in QUnit, Mocha, and Spine repositories.

To run tests:

npm test

To run a larger suite of tests ensuring compatibility with older versions of QUnit, etc.:

npm run test-ci

Tests are also run for every pull request, courtesy Travis CI.

Timeout issue with Travis CI

You might face build timeout issue on Travis if runner takes more than 10 minutes to run tests.

There are 2 possible ways to solve this problem:

1. Run a script which does console.log every 1-2 minutes. This will output to console and hence avoid Travis build timeout
2. Use travis_wait function provided by Travis-CI. You can prefix browserstack-runner command by travis-wait in your travis.yml file

We would recommend using travis_wait function. It also allows you to configure wait time (ex: travis_wait 20 browserstack-runner, this will extend wait time to 20 minutes). Read more about travis_wait here