Configure PAC files for Local Testing on Puppeteer

Work with PAC files to establish a Local Testing connection to run Puppeteer tests on BrowserStack Automate. Automated website testing on real device cloud.

PAC file (Proxy auto-configuration file) contains a Javascript function that determines whether a request should be sent via the proxy server.

Once you have the absolute path of the PAC file on your machine, you can establish a Local Testing connection using one of the following ways:

browserStackLocalOptions:
  pacFile: <pac_file_abs_path>

const BS_LOCAL_ARGS = {
    'key': process.env.BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY || 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY',
    'pac-file': '<pac_file_abs_path>'
};
bsLocal.start(BS_LOCAL_ARGS, testFn);  // testFn is the actual function that contains the test

./BrowserStackLocal --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY --pac-file <pac_file_abs_path>

BrowserStackLocal.exe --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY --pac-file <pac_file_abs_path>

Sample PAC file

The following function checks to see whether the hostname is localhost, and if so, whether the connection is direct. If the hostname is not localhost, the connection is via proxy.

function FindProxyForURL(url, host) {
  if (isPlainHostName(host))
    return "DIRECT";
  else
    return "PROXY proxy:80";
}

If you don’t understand the proxy script or are not authorized to make any changes to it, contact your IT/Network team.