Local Testing with App Automate

Local Testing is a BrowserStack feature that helps you test mobile apps that access resources hosted in development or testing environments during automated test execution.

In this guide, you will learn:

• How to configure BrowserStack local
• Run your first Local test

Prerequisites

You need to have BrowserStack Username and Access key, which you can find in your account settings. If you have not created an account yet, you can sign up for a Free Trial or purchase a plan.

Configure BrowserStack Local

You can setup localhost testing using the following two ways:

• Recommended: Via PIP (language bindings): The BrowserStack Local binary is installed using the pip command. It internally establishes a secure tunnel with BrowserStack when you run your test case. The package provides hooks that let you control the lifecycle of the tunnel.
• Via CLI Interface (binary): You can also download the BrowserStack Local binary and setup the tunnel via your terminal. This method is useful when you don’t want to make any code changes in your test suite and want to manage the tunnel lifecycle independently.

pip install browserstack-local

def start_local():
    global bs_local
    bs_local = Local()
    bs_local_args = { "key": "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY", "forcelocal": "true" }
    bs_local.start(**bs_local_args)
  
def stop_local():
    global bs_local
    bs_local.stop()
  
# Start BrowserStack local binary
start_local()
  
# Test case for the BrowserStack sample Android/iOS app. 
  
# Invoke driver.quit() after the test is done to indicate that the test is completed.
driver.quit()
  
stop_local()

desired_cap = {
    "bstack:options": {
        #Set the local capability as true
        "local" : "true"
    }
}

desired_caps = {
    #Set BrowserStack Local capability as True
    "browserstack.local": "true"
}

# Using python
python3 browserstack_sample_local.py

# Step 3 - Run this command in your terminal to start the BrowserStack Local binary. Your working directory should be where you have the downloaded binary.
./BrowserStackLocal --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

# Step 3 - Run this command in your command prompt. Your working directory should be where you have unzipped BrowserStackLocal.exe
BrowserStackLocal.exe --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

desired_cap = {
    "bstack:options": {
        #Set the local capability as true
        "local" : "true"
    }
}

desired_caps = {
    #Set BrowserStack Local capability as True
    "browserstack.local": "true"
}

# Using python
python3 browserstack_sample_local.py

Check BrowserStack Local connectivity

Run a sample test to check if BrowserStack Local is working as expected and can connect to BrowserStack servers.

# clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/browserstack/python-appium-app-browserstack
# go to the sample repo
cd python-appium-app-browserstack
# install required dependencies
pip3 install -r requirements.txt

userName = "YOUR_USERNAME"
accessKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

"bstack:options": {
    "local" : "true"
}

python3 browserstack_sample.py

Additional configuration

BrowserStack Local works out of the box in most cases. However, depending on the URL from where your app fetches data, and your network setup, some additional configuration may be required. The following are the most frequently occurring scenarios:

The URL where app’s data resides is accessible from the internet but serves different content within your internal network.

This is common with staging environments set up as sub-domains and configured to work only in your private/VPN network. In this case, add the following entry in your browserstack_sample_local.py file.

"forceLocal": "true"

The forceLocal capability will resolve all network traffic through the BrowserStack Local tunnel.