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Integrate BrowserStack Automate with Azure Pipelines

A step-by-step guide to help you integrate Azure Pipelines or Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) with the BrowserStack device cloud for running all your Selenium tests on BrowserStack Automate.

Azure Pipelines is a continuous integration tool used to integrate your test suites. It enables continuous testing, build, and deployment of iterative code changes. CI/CD tools help catch failures ahead of the production stage and mitigate them as they occur.

The information in this section applies to using the BrowserStack plugin with Azure Pipelines as part of the Azure DevOps Services (cloud) offering only.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to:

Prerequisites

Before you can start integration, ensure that:

Install the BrowserStack Azure DevOps Extension

The BrowserStack Azure DevOps Extension eases the process of configuring Azure Pipelines to run tests on BrowserStack. To install the extension follow these steps:

  1. In the Visual Studio Marketplace, click Azure DevOps.
  2. Search for BrowserStack Azure DevOps Extension.
  3. In the BrowserStack Azure DevOps Extension page, click Get it Free.
  4. The Sign in page opens to sign in to your Azure account. After you sign-in, click Select an Azure DevOps organization and select your organization.
  5. Click Install to add the extension.

BrowserStack’s extension is now installed in your Azure DevOps organization. This installs the BrowserStack Config, BrowserStackResults, and BrowserStackStopLocal tasks to the list of available tasks for you to use them in your pipeline.

Configure BrowserStack in Azure Pipelines

For your tests to run on BrowserStack, the Azure Pipeline needs additional information, such as BrowserStack credentials.

You can create a pipeline using either a YAML editor or a classic editor. Depending on the editor you used to create the pipeline, refer to the steps in the following tabs to integrate BrowserStack in your pipeline.

  1. Open the Azure portal page and click My Azure DevOps Organizations.

  2. In the Azure DevOps Organizations page, click the project where you’ve created a pipeline for your project’s repository from the list of projects that appear.

  3. Click Project settings located at the bottom-left corner of your project’s page.

  4. In the Project details page, click Service connections > Create service connection.

  5. In the New service connection section, select BrowserStack from the given list, and click Next. Image of settings page asking user to select BrowserStack from the list

  6. In the New BrowserStack service connection section, enter your BrowserStack Username in the Username field, and then enter Access key in the AccessKey field.

  7. Click Verify to verify your BrowserStack credentials.

  8. After verification succeeds, enter a service connection name in the Service connection name field, such as browserstack-connection, and then click Verify and save. The service connection gets added and you’re redirected to the Service connections page. Image showing service creation in a YAML file

  9. Click the Click Pipelines option (Pipelines) icon.

  10. In the Pipelines page, select your pipeline.

  11. Click Edit to edit the pipeline.

  12. In the pipeline editor, from the Tasks pane, search for the BrowserStack Config task, and then select it. Select the BrowserStack Config task

  13. In the BrowserStack Config section, select the connection, created in Step 8, from BrowserStack service end point

  14. Click Add.

  15. In the pipeline editor, from the Tasks pane, search for the BrowserStack Results task, and then select it.

  16. In the BrowserStack Results section, enter automate in the Enter the product in use field, and then click Add. Image showing how to add results task in YAML

The following image shows the azure-pipelines.yml file with all the BrowserStack tasks configured to run your test on BrowserStack. YML file with BrowserStack tasks added

Ensure to set the build capability in your test script using the environment variable BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME. The extension will fail to embed test reports in your pipeline if this capability is missing. Check out Edit your test script to call environment variables to learn more.

Your build pipeline is successfully configured to connect with the BrowserStack cloud for your project.

Configure BrowserStack Local in Azure Pipelines

Use BrowserStack Local Testing to test your web applications hosted on private, development, and internal servers. With the BrowserStack Local Testing binary, you can create a secure, private connection between the BrowserStack Selenium Grid and your internal servers.

Configuring BrowserStack Local involves:

Set variables for BrowserStack Azure DevOps Extension

The BrowserStack Azure DevOps extension, by default, sets the following environment variables:

BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME
BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY
BROWSERSTACK_LOCAL
BROWSERSTACK_LOCAL_IDENTIFIER
BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME

When you create a service connection, the BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME and the BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY are automatically added as variables during the configuration step.

In addition, when you add the BrowserStack Config task in your pipeline, the BROWSERSTACK_LOCAL and BROWSERSTACK_LOCAL_IDENTIFIER environment variables are set automatically by the extension.

The extension also adds the BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME variable that autogenerates a build name for your test runs.

Edit your test script to call environment variables

Edit your test script to add the environment variables for setting capabilities using the following code snippets:

browserstack.yml
Copy icon Copy

Ensure to pass the browserstackLocal and localIdentifier capabilities to run tests on your local development servers.

To address the Build x not found error, ensure you set the environment variable BROWSERSTACK_TEST_RUN_NAME to match the auto-generated build name of the BrowserStack Azure plugin. This can be achieved using the following command:

export BROWSERSTACK_TEST_RUN_NAME=$BROWSERSTACK_BUILD_NAME

By doing this, the test name will align with the build name generated by the BrowserStack Azure plugin, preventing the error.

Add task to start BrowserStack Local

When you add the BrowserStack Config task, you have an option to select BrowserStack Local to run your tests on any development or staging environment. Based on the editor you used to create your pipeline, refer to the steps in the following tabs:

  1. Navigate to your pipeline and click Edit.

  2. In the Tasks pane, select BrowserStack Config from the tasks list.

  3. Select the service endpoint you created earlier.

  4. Select the BrowserStackLocal checkbox, and then click Add. Select the BrowserStackLocal checkbox Note: You can set additional configuration options, such as enabling verbose logging, for the Local binary in the BrowserStackLocal Options input field. Check out Set Additional Configuration options to learn more.

  5. In the Tasks pane, select BrowserStack Results from the tasks list. YML file with BrowserStack tasks added

  6. In the BrowserStack Results section, enter automate in the Enter the product in use field, and then click Add. Image of a page requiring users to enter automate in the field

The following image shows the azure-pipelines.yml file with all the BrowserStack tasks and local configured to run your test on BrowserStack.

YAML with local enabled

You must pass browserstack.local and browserstack.localIdentifier capabilities to test on your local development servers.

Set Proxy URL in the Pipeline

If your application is behind a proxy setup, you can specify the proxy host and port details as environment variables in Azure DevOps. Adding this information as variables ensures that the Local Testing binary passes test traffic through it.

Based on the type of proxy, either HTTP or HTTPS, you can set the value for HTTP_PROXY or HTTPS_PROXY, respectively, as shown:

HTTP_PROXY = "http://proxy-host>:<proxy-port>"

HTTPS_PROXY = "https://<proxy-host>:<proxy-port>"

If the proxy requires authentication, pass the credentials in the format of a basic auth URL, as follows:

HTTP_PROXY = "http://<username>:<password>@<proxy-host>:<proxy-port>"

HTTPS_PROXY = "https://<username>:<password>@<proxy-host>:<proxy-port>"

Depending on the editor you used to create your pipeline, refer to the steps in the following tabs:

  1. Navigate to your pipeline and click Edit.

  2. Click Variables located at the top-right corner of the page.

  3. In the Variables section, click New Variable.

  4. In the Variables section, enter HTTP_PROXYor HTTPS_PROXY in the Name field, and enter its value, such as http://127.0.0.1:8080, in the Value field.

  5. Click OK.

  6. In the Variables section, click Save.

Set Additional Configuration options

With the Local binary, you can set additional configurations, such as verbose logging, excluding hosts, and so on. To set any additional configuration options, add the flags in the BrowserStackLocal Options section. For example, to enable verbose logging and to route all traffic via the proxy, set the following flags in the BrowserStackLocal Options field:

  {"verbose": true, "forceProxy": true}

Check out Flag for Local Binary to learn about more Local Testing parameters.

Follow Camel case style when adding local modifier options. For example, enter the --force-local option as forcelocal in the BrowserStackLocal Options section.

Add task to stop BrowserStack Local

It is recommended to stop the BrowserStack Local binary after tests have been executed to optimize your resources. Add the BrowserStack Stop Local task in your pipeline using the following steps:

  1. Navigate to your pipeline and click Edit.

  2. In the Tasks pane, search for BrowserStack Stop Local from the tasks list, and then select it. Add BrowserStack Stop Local in YAML

The following image shows the azure-pipelines.yml file with all the BrowserStack tasks configured to run your local test on BrowserStack. YML file with BrowserStack local tasks added

View Test Reports in Azure Pipelines

The BrowserStack Azure Pipelines plugin enables you to embed the test results from BrowserStack into Azure Pipelines.

With this integration, you can now start testing your web applications and view your test results within Azure Pipelines. The following image shows how the test results appear in Azure Pipelines: BrowserStack test results displayed in the Azure Pipelines test report view, showing pass and fail outcomes for a web application test run

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