Integrate Your Test Suite with BrowserStack

BrowserStack gives you instant access to our Selenium Grid of 3000+ real devices and desktop browsers. Running your Selenium tests with XUnit on BrowserStack is simple.

Select your integration method

  • BrowserStack SDK (Recommended)
    Plug-n-play solution that takes care of all the integration steps for you
  • Legacy integration
    Perform the integration steps yourself. Useful for custom frameworks and advanced use-cases

Using the BrowserStack SDK is the recommended integration method for xUnit. The SDK handles your integration steps automatically. Use the Manual integration only when you are using custom frameworks or want to handle advanced parallelization use-cases.

Setup authentication

Set environment variables for BrowserStack credentials

In the previous section, we set up BrowserStack credentials directly in the test script. That method works for a sample build, but for a production-grade integration we recommend you store your credentials as environment variables and use those environment variables in your code.

Copy 
$env:BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME="YOUR_USERNAME"
$env:BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

setx BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME "YOUR_USERNAME" 
setx BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY" 
set BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME=YOUR_USERNAME
set BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

# Set these values in your ~/.zprofile (zsh) or ~/.profile (bash)
export BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME="YOUR_USERNAME"
export BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY="YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"

Use BrowserStack credentials in your test cases

Update your test cases to read BrowserStack credentials from environment variables and point the Selenium hub to the BrowserStack remote hub URL.

test-script.cs
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Connect your website under test

BrowserStack can integrate with test suites pointing to your localhost URL, staging environment and even websites behind one or more proxies/firewalls.

  • Language Bindings
  • CLI Interface - Binary

Install the package

Install the BrowserStack Local binary by running the following command.

dotnet add package BrowserStackLocal

Set the access key and use available methods in your test script

Set the bsLocalArgs variable to your BrowserStack access key and use the following methods provided by the local library to manage your local connection:

Method Description
local.start(bsLocalArgs) Expects bsLocalArgs object. Returns a callback when the tunnel has started successfully. Your test script should start executing after this callback has been invoked.
local.stop() Call this method after your test suite is complete.
local.isRunning() Check if the BrowserStack local instance is running.
test-script.cs
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Add desired capabilities to enable browserstack.local

Copy and set the browserstack.local capability to true. You may face errors running your test script if any other capability is enabled before setting up browserstack-local.

App.config
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If your staging environment is behind a proxy or firewall, additional arguments, such as proxy username, proxy password, etc, need to be set. Check out Local Binary parameters to learn about additional arguments.

Run a test using browserstack-local

Try running a localhost after following the above steps. Check out our sample Git repository for more details.

Download BrowserStack Local

Show download options

Unzip the binary

Unzip the downloaded file and move it to a folder/directory from which you have permission to start it using your command line or terminal.

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# Step 3 - Run this command in your terminal to start the BrowserStack Local binary. Your working directory should be where you have the downloaded binary.
./BrowserStackLocal --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

# Step 3 - Run this command in your command prompt. Your working directory should be where you have unzipped BrowserStackLocal.exe
BrowserStackLocal.exe --key YOUR_ACCESS_KEY

Run the binary using your command line or terminal

Run the adjacent command to initiate the BrowserStack Local connection

If your staging environment is behind a proxy or firewall, additional arguments, such as proxy username, proxy password, etc, need to be set. Check out Local Binary parameters to learn about additional arguments.

test-script.cs
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Set up config to enable browserstack.local

Copy the capabilities from the adjacent window into your config file.

Migrate your test cases

This section helps you with all the configuration changes, commonly used features, and best practices for a smooth migration of your test cases to BrowserStack.

Run test suite on a single browser

We recommend running your build using a single browser like Chrome or Firefox, to begin with. This isolates issues during the migration phase and helps with faster debugging. Refer to the capabilities as shown to use Chrome.

App.config
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Once you’ve migrated your test cases or have achieved stability with Chrome or Firefox, you can set up cross-browser testing.

Organize tests

Use the following capabilities for naming your tests and builds. This ensures effective debugging, test reporting, and build execution time analysis.

App.config
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Capability Description
sessionName Name for your test case. For example, Homepage - Get started
buildName CI/CD job or build name. For example, Website build #23, staging_1.3.27
projectName Name of your project. For example, Marketing Website

Use a new buildName name every time you run your test cases. This ensures that sessions are logically grouped under a unique build name and helps you monitor the health of your test suite effectively.

A build can only have a maximum of 1000 tests and post that a new build gets created with a ‘-1’ suffixed to the original build name.

Mark test as passed or failed

To mark whether your test has passed or failed on BrowserStack, use the Javascript executor in your test script. You can mark a test as passed or failed based on your test assertions.

The arguments passed in the Javascript method for setting the status and the corresponding reason of the test are status and reason

  • status accepts either passed or failed as the value.
  • reason accepts a string value.
TestScript.cs
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Set up debugging capabilities

To effectively debug your tests, utilize the following capabilities:

  1. Enable visual logs and automatic screenshot capture at every Selenium command by setting the debug capability.
  2. By default, Console Logs with log level ‘errors’ are enabled. Utilize the consoleLogs capability to enable various log levels, including warnings, info, verbose, errors, and disable.
  3. Capture the browser’s performance data, such as network traffic, latency, HTTP requests, and responses in a HAR format, by setting the networkLogs capability.
App.config
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Commonly used features and advanced-use cases

Here’s a list of features and capabilities you may find useful.

Accept insecure certificates

This capability suppresses browser popups warning about self-signed certificates usually found in staging environments.

Capability Expected values
acceptInsecureCerts A boolean. Default is False.
True if you want to accept all SSL certificates.
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Change desktop resolution

This capability changes the default desktop screen resolution for your tests on BrowserStack infra.

Capability Description Expected values
resolution Set the resolution of your remote machine before beginning your test A string. Default resolution is 1024x768

Supported resolutions:
Windows (XP, 7): 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1366x768, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, and 2048x1536

Windows (8, 8.1, 10): 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1366x768, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, and 2048x1536

OS X (Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, and High Sierra): 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 2560x1600, and 3840x2160

OS X (All other versions): 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, and 1920x1080
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Others

Some of the additional capabilities that you might find useful are:

Run test suite on a single browser

We recommend running your build using a single browser like Chrome or Firefox, to begin with. This isolates issues during the migration phase and helps with faster debugging. Refer to the capabilities as shown to use Chrome.

App.config
Copy icon Copy

Once you’ve migrated your test cases or have achieved stability with Chrome or Firefox, you can set up cross-browser testing.

Organize tests

Use the following capabilities for naming your tests and builds. This ensures effective debugging, test reporting, and build execution time analysis.

App.config
Copy icon Copy
Capability Description
name Name for your test case. For example, Homepage - Get started
build CI/CD job or build name. For example, Website build #23, staging_1.3.27
project Name of your project. For example, Marketing Website

Use a new build name every time you run your test cases. This ensures that sessions are logically grouped under a unique build name and helps you monitor the health of your test suite effectively.

A build can only have a maximum of 1000 tests and post that a new build gets created with a ‘-1’ suffixed to the original build name.

Mark test as passed or failed

To mark whether your test has passed or failed on BrowserStack, use the Javascript executor in your test script. You can mark a test as passed or failed based on your test assertions.

The arguments passed in the Javascript method for setting the status and the corresponding reason of the test are status and reason

  • status accepts either passed or failed as the value.
  • reason accepts a string value.
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Set up debugging capabilities

Use the following common debugging capabilities for your tests:

  1. Set the browserstack.debug capability to enable visual logs and capture screenshots at every Selenium command automatically.
  2. Console Logs with log level ‘errors’ are enabled by default. Set the browserstack.console capability to enable different log levels, such as warnings, info, verbose, errors, and disable.
  3. Set the browserstack.networkLogs capability to capture the browser’s performance data such as network traffic, latency, HTTP requests, and responses in a HAR format.
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Commonly used features and advanced-use cases

Here’s a list of features and capabilities you may find useful.

Accept insecure certificates

This capability suppresses browser popups warning about self-signed certificates usually found in staging environments.

Capability Expected values
acceptSslCerts A boolean. Default is False.
True if you want to accept all SSL certificates.
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Change desktop resolution

This capability changes the default desktop screen resolution for your tests on BrowserStack.

Capability Description Expected values
resolution Set the resolution of your remote machine before beginning your test A string. Default resolution is 1024x768

Supported resolutions:
Windows (XP, 7): 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1366x768, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, and 2048x1536

Windows (8, 8.1, 10): 1024x768, 1280x800, 1280x1024, 1366x768, 1440x900, 1680x1050, 1600x1200, 1920x1200, 1920x1080, and 2048x1536

OS X (Ventura, Monterey, Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave, and High Sierra): 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1080, 2560x1440, 2560x1600, and 3840x2160

OS X (All other versions): 1024x768, 1280x960, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, and 1920x1080
App.config
Copy icon Copy

Others

Some of the additional capabilities that you might find useful are:

Next steps

Once you have successfully integrated your test suite with BrowserStack, you might want to check the following:

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