TDD with Browserify, Mocha, Headless Chrome and WebDriver

Browserifies ./test/*.js, decorated with a Mocha test runner, runs it in Headless Chrome and passes the output back to your console. Cleans up your stack traces by mapping back to the original sources and removing lines from the test framework.

Features

• Run tests in Headless Chrome
  • Supports watch-mode with pre-loaded Chrome page (with --watch)
  • Use the Chrome developer tools for debugging (docs)
  • Run builds in CI (docs)
  • Load tests in the context of a file or URL (with --url)
  • Optional built-in HTTPS server (with --https-server)
• Run tests in real browsers
  • Supports SauceLabs (docs)
  • Supports Appium (docs)
  • Supports BrowserStack (docs)
  • Supports WebDriver (docs)
• Code coverage options:
  • Using nyc (docs)
  • Using coverify (with --cover)
• Works with most Mocha reporters (docs)
• Exposes a Node API (docs)

Install

This will install Mochify in your current project and add it to the devDependencies:

npm install mochify --save-dev

Puppeteer will download a recent version of Chromium. If you want to skip the download and provide your own executable instead, define the PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD environment variable or add this to your package.json:

{
  "config": {
    "puppeteer_skip_chromium_download": true
  }
}

For proxy settings and other environment variables, see the Puppeteer documentation.

Usage

Configure "scripts" in your package.json so that your project ships with the testing infrastructure:

{
  "scripts": {
    "test": "mochify",
    "watch": "mochify --watch",
    "webdriver": "mochify --wd"
  }
}

To run from the command line, either run npm install mochify -g to have mochify available globally, or from within your project directory run:

node_modules/.bin/mochify

Debugging

Place a debugger statement in your source code and run mochify --debug. This will open a Chromium instance with developer tools opened and it will break at the debugger statement.

Command line options

• --watch or -w use watchify to watch your files and run the tests on change.
• --reporter or -R changes the Mocha reporter (see further down).
• --grep sets the Mocha grep option.
• --invert sets the Mocha grep invert flag.
• --recursive include sub directories.
• --ui or -U changes the Mocha UI. Defaults to 'bdd'.
• --timeout or -t changes the Mocha timeout. Defaults to 2000.
• --colors explicitly enables color output.
• --no-colors explicitly disables color output.
• --outfile or -o writes output to this file. If unspecified, mochify prints to stdout.
• --require or -r requires the given module.
• --debug launches a non-headless chromium instance with developer tools.
• --chrome uses a specific Chrome executable. If not specified, the built-in chromium is used.
• --ignore-ssl-errors tells Chrome whether or not to ignore ssl certificate issues (default is false)
• --allow-chrome-as-root allows Chrome to run as root
• --dumpio passed to puppeteer to dump all IO
• --https-server launches an HTTPS server on the specified port. If no port is given a random available port will be used.
• --viewport-width tells Chrome to use a certain width for its viewport.
• --viewport-height tells Chrome to use a certain height for its viewport.
• --cover checks code coverage with coverify.
• --node creates a bare bundle and runs test cases on node.
• --wd use min-webdriver to run the tests in multiple real browsers.
• --url runs the tests in the context of the given URL.
• --wd-file (only with --wd) specify the location of the .min-wd config file.
• --consolify output.html generate a standalone HTML page with consolify.
• --bundle specify a separate JS file export when using --consolify.
• --transform specifies a Browserify transform to add. Can be specified multiple times. Options can be passed with subargs.
• --global-transform specifies a Browserify transform to add globally. Can be specified multiple times. Options can be passed with subargs.
• --plugin specifies a Browserify plugin to add. Can be specified multiple times. Options can be passed with subargs.
• --extension search for files with the extension in "require" statements.
• --no-browser-field turns off package.json browser field resolution.
• --no-commondir preserve original paths.
• --external marks given path or module as external resource and prevent from being loaded into the bundle.
• --yields or -y changes the yield interval to allow pending I/O to happen.
• --version or -v shows the Mochify version number.
• --help or -h shows usage and all available options.
• --async-polling disables async polling when set to false (for use in Appium).
• --mocha-path specifies path to a custom Mocha module
• --web-security allows disabling same-origin policy (when set to false, passes down --disable-web-security to Chromium)

Continuous Integration

To run builds in CI services like Travis or CircleCI, you must pass --allow-chrome-as-root.

Here is a minimal .travis.yml:

language: node_js
node_js:
  - "16"

sudo: false

script:
  - npm test -- --allow-chrome-as-root

Selenium WebDriver setup

• Download the «Selenium Server Standalone» JAR from here: http://selenium-release.storage.googleapis.com/index.html
• Except for Firefox, you will also need drivers for each browser.
• The driver for Google Chrome can be found here: http://chromedriver.storage.googleapis.com/index.html
• Put the drivers in the same directory as the JAR file and run:

java -jar selenium-server-standalone-2.39.0.jar

Create .min-wd in your project root:

{
  "hostname": "localhost",
  "port": 4444,
  "browsers": [{
    "name": "internet explorer",
    "version": "11"
  }, {
    "name": "chrome"
  }, {
    "name": "firefox"
  }]
}

That's it! Now mochify --wd will run your Mocha test cases in the configured browsers simultaneously. If you installed mochify without -g, you will have to run node_modules/.bin/mochify --wd.

Additional Selenium capabilities and browser-specific capabilities can be specified with the capabilities property:

{
  "hostname": "localhost",
  "port": 4444,
  "browsers": [{
    "name": "chrome",
    "capabilities": {
      "chromeOptions": {
        "args": ["--headless", "--disable-gpu"]
      }
    }
  }]
}

SauceLabs setup

Export your SauceLabs credentials:

export SAUCE_USERNAME="your-user-name"
export SAUCE_ACCESS_KEY="your-access-key"

Enable SauceLabs in your .min-wd file or in the "webdriver" property in your package.json:

{
  "sauceLabs": true
}

For more information about Selenium WebDriver and SourceLabs support can be found on the min-webdriver project page.

Appium setup

Note: This has only be tested on Mac OS X High Sierra with the iOS Simulator so far. If you have successfully tested with other configurations, please file an issue so that we can extend the docs.

Setup for iOS Simulator on Mac OS X (requires XCode):

• npm install -g appium
• brew install carthage
• Configure your .min-wd file or the "webdriver" property in your package.json like this:

{
  "hostname": "localhost",
  "port": 4723,
  "browsers": [{
    "name": "Safari",
    "platformName": "iOS",
    "platformVersion": "11.2",
    "deviceName": "iPhone Simulator"
  }]
}

• Run appium --log-level error which should start a server on port 4723
• Run mochify --wd --async-polling false

It's important to use --async-polling false here. The default asynchronous polling does not work with this setup.

BrowserStack setup

Export your BrowserStack credentials:

export BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME="your-user-name"
export BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY="your-access-key"

Example .min-wd file:

module.exports = {
  "hostname": "hub-cloud.browserstack.com",
  "port": 80,
  "browsers": [{
    "name": "chrome",
    "capabilities": {
      "browser": "Chrome",
      "browserstack.user": process.env.BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME,
      "browserstack.key": process.env.BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY
    }
  }]
}

Reporters

Mocha reporters known to work:

• min
• dot
• list
• spec
• tap
• json
• doc
• xunit
• markdown
• landing
• nyan

Note: Consuming the output of a machine readable reporter may not work as expected with --wd.

API

var mochify = require('mochify');

mochify('./test/*.js', {
  reporter: 'tap'
}).bundle();

• mochify() uses default settings and runs tests in ./test/*.js
• mochify(paths) specifies the paths, a space delimited list of globs
• mochify(opts) configures options as described below
• mochify(paths, opts) combines custom paths and options

All long form command line options can be used. E.g. --node can be configured as { node : true }, --no-browser-field as { 'browser-field': false }, --reporter tab as { reporter : 'tab' } and so on.

Additional API options:

• output a stream that receives the test output (e.g. through2)
• glob options to pass to glob
• reporterOptions options to pass to mocha reporter

The mochify function returns a Browserify instance. Please refer to the Browserify API for details.

Code coverage with NYC

Install nyc, the babelify transform, @babel/core and babel-plugin-istanbul:

$ npm install nyc babelify @babel/core babel-plugin-istanbul --save-dev

Using a package.json script that can be run with npm run cover:

{
  "scripts" : {
    "cover" : "nyc --instrument false mochify --transform [ babelify --ignore [ test ] --plugins [ babel-plugin-istanbul ] ]"
  }
}

Workaround for Apple Silicon

Puppeteer fails to launch on M1. Follow these steps to work around:

• Install Google Chrome

• Define these environment variables:

  export PUPPETEER_SKIP_CHROMIUM_DOWNLOAD=true
  export PUPPETEER_EXECUTABLE_PATH=/Applications/Google\ Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google\ Chrome

Compatibility

• v8.x
  • Node Node 12.0+, Node 14.0+, Node 16.0+
  • Mocha ^8.4
  • Browserify ^16.5
  • Puppeteer ^9.1
• v7.x
  • Node 10.0+, Node 12.0+, Node 14.0+
  • Mocha ^5.2
  • Browserify ^16.5
  • Puppeteer ^5.3
• v6.x
  • Node 6.0+, Node 8.0+, Node 10.0+
  • Mocha ^5.2
  • Browserify ^16.2
  • Puppeteer ^1.10
• v5.2+
  • Node 6.0+, Node 8.0+
  • Mocha ^4.1
  • Browserify ^15.2
  • Puppeteer ^1.0
• v5.0 - v5.1
  • Node 6.0+, Node 8.0+
  • Mocha ^4.0
  • Browserify ^14.4
  • Puppeteer ^0.13
• v4.x
  • Node 4.0+, 6.0+, Node 8.0+
  • PhantomJS 1.9, 2.0
  • Mocha ^4.0
  • Browserify ^14.4
• v3.x
  • Node 4.0+
  • Mocha ^3.2
  • Browserify ^14.1
• v2.15+
  • Browserify 13.x
• v2.14
  • Mocha ^2.3
• v2.13
  • Browserify 11.x
• v2.10 - v2.12
  • Browserify 10.x
• v2.5 - v2.9
  • Browserify 9.x
• v2.4
  • Browserify 8.x
• v2.3
  • Browserify 7.x
• v2.0 - v2.2
  • Browserify 6.x
  • Mocha 2.x
• v1.x
  • Browserify 5.x
  • Mocha 1.x
• v0.x
  • Browserify 4.x

License

MIT