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Test App Center builds

Use BrowserStack to seamlessly test your apps distributed using App Center on our Real Device Cloud.

Getting Started

BrowserStack allows you to directly install the apps on the BrowserStack devices using the App Center’s public download URL. Below are the steps you need to follow to generate and configure your app’s public link in the test.

Getting the App Center Credentials

You need the app_secret and distribution_group_id from the App Center dashboard. The steps for obtaining the same are listed below:

  1. Get the App Secret: Go to your app in the App Center dashboard→Overview→Scroll down to Start the SDK section. Sample: MSAppCenter.start(“”, withServices:[…..]) app secret

  2. Get the Group ID: App Center creates Group ID’s for each of your groups. To create the groups and distribute new release, please refer to the documentation. Create new release panel in app center for creating group id After the release is done, click on the Group Settings icon for the group Group Settings on App Center Dashboard On clicking the icon, the Group Settings window opens and the Group ID is displayed (below the group name). Also, enable app download via link access. Screenshot of distribution group id being displayed

Fetching the App URL

Enter the app_secret and distribution_group_id obtained from previous steps. The App URL is returned in the response of this API call.

curl -X GET "https://api.appcenter.ms/v0.1/public/sdk/apps/{app_secret}/distribution_groups/{distribution_group_id}/releases/latest"
-H "accept: application/json"

Sample Response:

{"app_name":"app name",
"app_display_name":"app display name",
"app_os":"app OS type",
"app_icon_url":"https://the public url for app download"},
"id":1,
"version":"version number",
......
"download_url":"https://your url"
.....]}

The download_url returned in the response is the App URL which will be used to execute your test.

Uploading the App

Upload your app using the public url to the BrowserStack servers using the REST API. If you would like to set a constant value in your ‘app’ capability instead of updating your test code to change the App URL every time you upload an app, define a Custom Id for your app.

curl -u "YOUR_USERNAME:YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" \
-X POST "https://api-cloud.browserstack.com/app-automate/upload" \
-F "data={\"url\": \"<download_url>\", \"custom_id\": \"<your_custom_id>\"}"

Note: App upload will take few seconds to about a minute depending on the size of your app. Do not interrupt the curl command until you get the response back.

Sample Response:

{"app_url":"bs://<hashed-id>"}

If the Custom ID has been specified the response would be:
{"app_url":"bs://<hashed appid>", "custom_id":"<your_custom_id>", "shareable_id":"<shareable_id>"}

Executing the test with BrowserStack

BrowserStack supports automated mobile app tests using Appium/Espresso/XCUI frameworks, and running your tests on our cloud setup is simple and straightforward. To get started, refer to the BrowserStack documentation for Appium, Espresso and XCUITest.

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