Set BrowserStack credentials

Saving your BrowserStack credentials as environment variables makes it simple to run your test suite from your local or CI environment.

Install BrowserStack Python SDK

Execute the following commands to install BrowserStack python SDK for plug-and-play integration of your test suite with BrowserStack.

python3 -m pip install browserstack-sdk
browserstack-sdk setup --username "YOUR_USERNAME" --key "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

python3 -m pip install browserstack-sdk
browserstack-sdk setup --username "YOUR_USERNAME" --key "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

Create your BrowserStack config file

Once you have installed the SDK, create a browserstack.yml config file at the root level of your project. This file holds all the required capabilities to run tests on BrowserStack.

Set platforms to test on

Set the browsers/devices you want to test under the platforms object. Our config follows W3C formatted capabilities.

Platform	Browser
Linux	Firefox
Linux	Chrome
Linux	Edge

Do you want to dynamically configure platforms?

To dynamically configure platforms across different tests, you can comment out the platforms capability while still passing platform-specific capabilities.

BrowserStack Reporting

You can leverage BrowserStack’s extensive reporting features using the following capabilities:

Build Name

Set a name to your build (usually the same as the build ID that’s on your CI/CD platform).
Accepted characters: A-Z, a-z, 0-9, ., :, -, [], /, @, &, ', _. All other characters are ignored.
Character limit: 255

Build Identifier

Select a dynamic build identifier that appends to the build name and generates a unique name on the BrowserStack dashboard

${BUILD_NUMBER}

${BUILD_NUMBER}

${DATE_TIME}

buildIdentifier	Description	Generated build name on BrowserStack dashboard
${BUILD_NUMBER} (Default)	If build is triggered locally, an incremental counter is appended. If build is triggered with CI tools, CI generated build number is appended.	bstack-demo 1 bstack-demo CI 1395
${DATE_TIME}	The timestamp of run time is appended to the build.	bstack-demo 29-Nov-20:44

Advanced use cases for Build Names

Custom formatting of Build Name

Prefix buildIdentifier with desired characters, for example # or :

buildName: bstack-demo
buildIdentifier: '#${BUILD_NUMBER}'

Re-run tests in a build

You can re-run selected tests from a build using any of the following options:

Option 1: Set the existing build name in the BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME variable and prepend it to your test run command to re-run tests in the same build:

MacOS/Linux:

BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME=“bstack-demo 123” browserstack-sdk

Windows Powershell:

$env:BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME=“bstack-demo 123”; browserstack-sdk

Windows cmd:

set BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME=“bstack-demo 123” && browserstack-sdk

Option 2: Set the build name as a combination of buildName and buildIdentifier, as seen on the dashboard, and set buildIdenitifier as null:

buildName: bstack-demo 123
buildIdentifier: null

Option 3: Set the buildIdentifier as the build number or time of the required build as seen on the dashboard:

buildName: bstack-demo
buildIdentifier: 123

Project Name

Set a project name for your project

Use additional debugging features

By default, BrowserStack provides prettified session logs, screenshots on every failed selenium command, and a video of the entire test. Additionally, you can enable the following features:

Test Observability

Enables Test Observability with advanced test reporting, debugging, analytics, and insights for your test suites with the help of automatic test data collection using the SDK

True

False

Network logs

Enables network capture for the session in HAR format. Might reduce session performance slightly

True

False

Console logs

Set the remote browser’s console log levels. Currently supported only on Chrome browsers (Desktop and Android)

Info

Disable

Verbose

Info

Warnings

Errors

Create browserstack.yml file

Copy the following code snippet and create browserstack.yml file in the root folder of your test suite.

Run your test suite

Prepend browserstack-sdk before your existing run commands to execute your tests on BrowserStack using the Python SDK.

Before
python <path-to-test-files>

After
browserstack-sdk python <path-to-test-files>

Setup authentication

Set environment variables for BrowserStack credentials:

# Set these values in your ~/.zprofile (zsh) or ~/.profile (bash)
export BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME=YOUR_USERNAME
export BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

It is recommended that you store your credentials as environment variables and use those environment variables in your test script.

Update your test script

a. Use BrowserStack credentials and update the Selenium hub URL

import os
# Other imports and desired_cap definition goes here
BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME = os.environ.get("YOUR_USERNAME") or BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME
BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY = os.environ.get("YOUR_ACCESS_KEY") or BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY
URL = "https://{}:{}@hub-ft.browserstack.com/wd/hub".format(BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME, BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY)
driver = webdriver.Remote(command_executor=URL, options=options)
# Rest of the test case goes here

Update your test cases to read BrowserStack credentials from environment variables. Update the Selenium hub URL to the BrowserStack remote hub URL: https://hub-ft.browserstack.com/wd/hub

Migrate your test cases

After you set up authentication in your test scripts, you can now add configurations, such as adding browser-OS combinations, test suite organization details, test status that you want to track, and then run your tests.

# Add the following options to your test script
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.options import Options
options = Options()
bstack_options = {
    'os' : 'Linux',
    'browserVersion': 'latest'
}
options.set_capability('bstack:options', bstack_options)
options.set_capability('browserName', 'Chrome') 

Organize tests

# Testing the home page
bstack_options = {
    'projectName': 'Marketing Website v2',
    'buildName': 'alpha_0.1.7',
    'sessionName': 'Home page must have a title'
}
options.set_capability('bstack:options', bstack_options)

Use the following capabilities for naming your tests and builds. This ensures effective debugging, test reporting, and build execution time analysis.

• Use a new buildName name every time you run your test cases. This ensures that sessions are logically grouped under a unique build name and helps you monitor the health of your test suite effectively.
  
  
• A build can only have a maximum of 1000 tests and post that a new build gets created with a -1 suffixed to the original build name.

Mark test as Passed or Failed

To mark whether your test has passed or failed on BrowserStack, use the JavaScript executor in your test script. You can mark a test as passed or failed based on your test assertions.

The arguments passed in the JavaScript method for setting the status and the corresponding reason of the test are status and reason:

• status accepts either passed or failed as the value.
• reason accepts a string value.

For marking test as passed

driver.execute_script('browserstack_executor: {"action": "setSessionStatus", "arguments": {"status":"passed", "reason": "Yaay! my sample test passed"}}')

For marking test as failed

driver.execute_script('browserstack_executor: {"action": "setSessionStatus", "arguments": {"status":"failed","reason": "Oops! my sample test failed"}}')

Set up debugging capabilities

1. Enable visual logs and automatic screenshot capture at every Selenium command by setting the debug capability.
2. By default, Console Logs with log level errors are enabled. Utilize the consoleLogs capability to enable various log levels, including warnings, info, verbose, errors, and disable.
3. Capture the browser’s performance data, such as network traffic, latency, HTTP requests, and responses in a HAR format, by setting the networkLogs capability.

bstack_options = {
    'debug' : 'true',  # to enable visual logs
    'networkLogs' : 'true', # to enable network logs to be logged
    'consoleLogs' : 'info', # to enable console logs at the info level. You can also use other log levels here
}
options.set_capability('bstack:options', bstack_options)