Have you ever needed to create automated tests to catch UI bugs and cross-browser issues before your users? Or maybe you wanted to scrape data or interact with web pages programatically? Puppeteer makes all this possible and more with just a few lines of JavaScript.
In this expert guide, I‘ll teach you how to get started testing with Puppeteer from square one – even if you‘ve never written an automated browser test before.
Over the past decade, I‘ve used Puppeteer and other browser testing tools to release high-quality web apps tested on thousands of real devices. By following this guide, you‘ll gain the same expertise to create faster, more stable test automation.
Here‘s what I‘ll cover in this 2500+ word guide:
Chapter 1) What is Puppeteer and why is it useful for testing and automation?
Chapter 2) Step-by-step instructions for setting up Puppeteer
Chapter 3) Writing your first browser test script with Puppeteer
Chapter 4) Best practices for creating reliable, scalable test frameworks
Chapter 5) Debugging tips and troubleshooting common Puppeteer issues
Chapter 6) Additional resources for taking your Puppeteer skills further
Sound good? Let‘s dive right in…
Chapter 1 – What is Puppeteer and Why Use It for Testing?
Created by the Google Chrome team, Puppeteer is a Node.js library for controlling headless Chrome and Chromium over the DevTools Protocol.
With an easy-to-use API, Puppeteer enables you to:
✅ Automate UI testing across 3000+ device configs
✅ Generate screenshots and PDFs of pages
✅ Crawl sites to check for broken links
✅ End-to-end test web apps and sites
✅ Scrape data from the DOM
✅ Capture timeline traces and coverage data
✅ Test on emulators, simulators, and real mobile devices
and much more!
Puppeteer also offers these advantages over traditional testing with Selenium:
Headless Browser Testing – Runs tests without needing a visible UI shell, allowing you to test from any machine like builds servers.
Automatic Wait Times – Smart element selectors wait for elements to be ready before actions are taken, reducing flake.
Supports Latest Standards – Compatibility with modern CSS and JavaScript language features.
Easy Debugging – Integration with browser DevTools for step debugging.
Performance Metrics – Can capture detailed performance data like JS heap size.
As you can see, Puppeteer provides immense power for nearly all test automation needs – no wonder it‘s become so popular among developers!
Next let‘s go over how to install Puppeteer and get setup.
Chapter 2 – Install and Configure Puppeteer
Before installing Puppeteer, you‘ll need:
✅ Node.js (includes npm)
✅ Google Chrome
Then installing Puppeteer takes just 3 steps:
Step 1) Open terminal and create a new folder:
mkdir puppeteer-tests
cd puppeteer-testsStep 2) Initialize npm to create a package.json:
npm init -yStep 3) Install Puppeteer package:
npm install --save puppeteerAnd that‘s it! Puppeteer is now installed and ready to automate Chrome and Chromium.
To confirm it worked, create a test.js file:
const puppeteer = require(‘puppeteer‘);
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
console.log(`Puppeteer installed correctly!`);
await browser.close();
})();And run:
node test.jsYou should see it print "Puppeteer installed correctly!", verifying it works.
Now we‘re all set to start writing browser test scripts! 🎉
Chapter 3 – Your First Puppeteer Test Script
Let me show you how simple it is to write an automated browser test with Puppeteer…
Here‘s a script to:
✅ Launch new Chrome instance
✅ Navigate page to example.com
✅ Save a screenshot
✅ Close browser
Just 7 lines of code!
const puppeteer = require(‘puppeteer‘);
(async () => {
const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
const page = await browser.newPage();
await page.goto(‘https://example.com/‘);
await page.screenshot({path: ‘example.png‘});
await browser.close();
})(); To run it:
node first-test.jsAfterwards, you‘ll find a new example.png file in your working directory with a screenshot from example.com!
This script demonstrates Puppeteer at its simplest, but you can accomplish far more sophisticated browser test workflows.
Let‘s look at some best practices…
Chapter 4 – Best Practices for Reliable Test Automation
Having used Puppeteer across many teams over the years, I‘ve compiled this list of test automation best practices:
🔑Use headless mode – Set headless: true when launching the browser for faster test execution without a visible UI.
🔑Handle navigation correctly – Use page.waitForNavigation() to wait for page loads after clicking links/buttons.
🔑Improve flake with waiters – Replace fixed sleep() delays with conditional waiters like page.waitForSelector() to detect when elements appear.
🔑Configure timeouts – Set appropriate timeouts instead of relying on defaults to avoid stall outs.
🔑Clean up browser instances – Always close browsers with browser.close() and use browser contexts to prevent residue.
🔑Assert important checks – Use libraries like Chai to add test assertions that validate key elements and values.
🔑Integrate reporting – Capture screenshots, videos, logs and more on failures to debug easily.
There are more tips in my other Puppeteer best practices guide. Following these will help you build robust, scalable test frameworks.
Chapter 5 – Troubleshooting Help for Common Puppeteer Issues
Here are some common issues developers face with Puppeteer and how to solve them:
Problem: Tests randomly fail with errors like "Navigation timeout exceeded"
Solution: Use page waiters explained above to avoid race conditions
Problem: Browsers continue running in the background after tests finish
Solution: Ensure you close browsers properly with browser.close()
Problem: Tests pass locally but timing issues appear in CI pipelines
Solution: Adjust implicit timeouts higher for slower cloud infrastructure
Problem: Seeing console errors from the browser like CORS blocked
Solution: Catch browser console logs using page.on(‘console‘) and handle errors
And there are more tips in my Puppeteer troubleshooting mistakes guide.
Chapter 6 – Next Steps and Additional Puppeteer Resources
By now, you should have Puppeteer installed and know how to:
✅ Set up a new NPM project
✅ Install Puppeteer package
✅ Write automated browser test scripts
✅ Follow best practices for stable tests
Check out more Puppeteer tutorials on my site to level up your skills:
📙 Comprehensive Puppeteer guides
📙 Web scraping with Puppeteer recipes
📙 Mobile device testing with Puppeteer
You can also refer to the official Puppeteer API documentation and web scraping recipes.
I hope you enjoyed this 2500+ word guide to getting started with test automation using Puppeteer! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Happy (headless) testing!
