Configuring desired capabilities is key to setting up and customizing your Appium test automation sessions. In this comprehensive guide, we will deep dive into all key aspects of Appium capabilities to help testers maximize efficiency and stability of their test suites.
1. Introduction to Appium Capabilities
Desired capabilities in Appium are specified as key-value pairs in a JSON object to instruct the Appium server about the test session configuration like device, platform version, app details etc.
Here‘s an example capabilities object:
{
"platformName": "Android",
"platformVersion": "10.0",
"deviceName": "Galaxy S20",
"app": "/path/to/app.apk"
}Appium has a predefined set of standard capability keys. Additionally it allows specification of custom keys if required.
There are separate sets of capabilities supported for Android and iOS platforms. In next sections we will see them in more detail.
2. Important Android Capabilities
Here are some of the most common and important Appium capabilities used for Android automation:
appPackage – The Java package of your Android app under test
appActivity – The name of the activity to launch from your package
platformVersion – Version of Android OS running on device/emulator
automationName – Which automation engine to use like UiAutomator2 or Espresso
appWaitPackage – Package to wait for before starting tests
appWaitActivity – Activity to wait for before starting tests
Refer to the full list here.
Let‘s look at some examples:
"appPackage": "com.mycompany.myapp",
"appActivity": ".MainActivity"
"platformVersion": "11.0",
"automationName": "UiAutomator2"3. Important iOS Capabilities
Some common Appium capabilities used for iOS test automation include:
automationName – XCUITest or UIAutomation are automation engines
platformVersion – Version number of iOS on device
deviceName – Name of physical iOS device like iPhone 12
bundleId – Bundle ID of your iOS app
Examples:
"automationName": "XCUITest",
"platformVersion": "14.5",
"deviceName": "iPhone 12",
"bundleId": "com.mycompany.myapp" Refer to the full list here.
4. Why Correct Capabilities are Important?
Desired capabilities in Appium essentially configure your test automation session by:
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Selecting the target device and platform
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Specifying details about the app under test
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Choosing automation libraries/engines to use
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Setting timeouts, install modes etc.
Some key benefits of setting right capabilities are:
1. Increased test stability – Less unexpected errors
2. Faster test execution – Optimal configuration of automation session
3. Wider test coverage – Able to test on different platforms and devices
4. Code reusability – No need to make changes in code for different environments
Thus it is important for teams to standardize and carefully review their desired capabilities as part of test automation framework design.
5. Recommended Practices
Based on our years of experience in test automation, here are some best practices around managing Appium capabilities:
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Maintain separate capability sets for Android and iOS devices
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Have dedicated sets for real devices and emulators
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Standardize capability keys across your test suite
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Parametrize values like appPackage, testAppVersion etc.
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Leverage external systems like property files or environment variables for managing capability values
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Validate correctness by testing on host machines before integrating with CI/CD pipelines
These practices will ensure you build robust, reusable and maintainable test automation frameworks.
6. Common Issues and Troubleshooting
Some typical capability related issues faced along with their fixes:
Session startup errors – An invalid or unsupported capability key was used. Verify platform documentation for all used capability keys.
Tests fail to launch – Wrong appPackage or appActivity used for Android. Confirm values from app .apk manifest file.
XCUITest vs. UIAutomation failures – Try toggling automationName capability as certain operations may not work on Xcode versions with default iOS automation backend.
Webviews not automatable – Set automateWebviews capability to true for testing webviews inside hybrid mobile apps.
Emulator tests unstable – Use emulator capability keys like androidInstallTimeout to optimize Appium emulator session stability.
7. Integrations with Cloud Platforms
Appium cloud platforms like BrowserStack dramatically simplify capability configuration by providing an intuitive UI to generate these based on selecting target device/os and test environment:
Teams should maximize use of these cloud platforms as they eliminate infrastructure maintanence and also provide much wider device coverage for mobile app test automation.
8. Usage in Test Automation Frameworks
Here are code snippets to show integration of desired capabilities in test code:
Python:
desired_caps = {
"platformName": "Android",
"app": "/path/to/app.apk"
}
driver = webdriver.Remote("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub", desired_caps)Java:
DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
caps.setCapability("deviceName", "Galaxy S8");
AndroidDriver<AndroidElement> driver = new AndroidDriver<>(new URL("http://127.0.0.1:4723/wd/hub"), caps);C#:
DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
caps.SetCapability("platform", "iOS");
IWebDriver driver = new IOSDriver<IOSElement>(new Uri("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub"), caps);9. Custom and Mobile Extensions Capabilities
Appium allows additional mobile automation session configuration using:
Custom capabilities: For any special parameters not covered by standard keys.
Mobile extensions: Powerful extensions like appium-chromedriver enabling advanced mobile web automation.
For example usage refer to Appium documentation on these advanced capability concepts.
10. Conclusion
The goal of this guide was to cover capabilities in Appium in a comprehensive, end-to-end manner. We discussed the concepts, configuration best practices, integrations, troubleshooting of issues and usage in test automation code.
Configuring capabilities correctly is crucial for test stability. Platforms like BrowserStack make that very easy by generating these automatically.
Hopefully teams will find this guide useful for creating robust test automation frameworks for both Android and iOS apps using Appium.
