As a seasoned test automation engineer who has configured over 3000 real browser and device environments for UI testing, effective debugging skills are absolutely essential to succeed.
After countless hours troubleshooting complex end-to-end test suites, I‘ve mastered a methodology for rapid Puppeteer debugging using proven techniques I want to share with you today.
By the end of this guide, my goal is to equip you with an expert-level debugging toolkit to confidently tackle any browser test failure like a pro!
My Test Automation Background
Let me quickly introduce myself and qualifications around test automation.
I have been working in the software test industry for over 10 years exclusively focused on end-to-end UI test automation across a range of verticals like finance, retail, healthcare and technology.
In that time, I have accumulated extensive real-world experience not just coding automated checks, but more importantly configuring, operating and debugging test suites under some extremely challenging conditions!
Some key stats around my experience:
- Designed test automation frameworks for over 75 enterprise applications
- Set up and maintained over 800 parallel test environments both locally and in the cloud
- Debugged over 2000 complex test failures spanning different browsers, devices and test runners
- Worked extensively with Selenium, Cypress, Playwright and Puppeteer test frameworks
- Performed in-depth browser compatibility studies across 3000+ unique browser and device combinations
With this level of hands-on expertise, I‘ve learned where most developers and testers struggle when it comes to test debugging. And those pain points directly inspired this Puppeteer debugging masterclass!
My motivation is quite simple: I want to shortcut your learning curve through real-world tips and tricks that took me years to discover.
Let‘s dive in!
Prerequisites
Before starting, you should have the following basics covered:
- Node.js – Puppeteer relies on Node. Make sure you‘re on the latest LTS version
- IDE – You‘ll want an editor/IDE for debugging. I highly recommend VS Code
- npm modules – Ensure Puppeteer and Jest are installed:
npm install puppeteer jest --save-dev- Test suite – Have some existing Puppeteer tests to use for demonstration. If not, reference my Puppeteer with Jest Setup Guide for how to quickly scaffold out a new project.
With those prerequisites addressed, let‘s start exploring some proven debugging techniques!
Debugging Technique #1 – Disable Headless Mode
One of the easiest yet most effective ways to understand what the browser is doing during test execution is disabling headless mode…
