CircleCI with BrowserStack Load Testing

Integrate BrowserStack Load Testing into CircleCI pipelines to run load tests in your CI/CD workflows.

You can add BrowserStack Load Testing to your CircleCI pipelines so that every commit triggers a load test.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following before you start:

• A BrowserStack account with access to Load Testing.
• A CircleCI account connected to your GitHub or Bitbucket organization.
• A source repository (GitHub or Bitbucket) where CircleCI reads your .circleci/config.yml.
• CircleCI environment variables for your BrowserStack credentials. You can find the credentials on your account’s profile page:
  • BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME: Your BrowserStack username.
  • BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY: Your BrowserStack access key.

To add the variables:

1. Go to your project on CircleCI.
2. In the top-right corner, click Project Settings.
3. In the left sidebar, click Environment Variables.
4. Click Add Environment Variable for each of the two credentials, enter the Name and Value, and click Add Environment Variable.

CircleCI automatically injects these into every job step.

To set up the project (first time):

1. Sign in to CircleCI with your GitHub or Bitbucket account.
2. Click Projects in the sidebar, find your repository, and click Set Up Project.
3. Choose Use the .circleci/config.yml in my repo’s main branch.
4. CircleCI runs the first pipeline immediately after setup.

CircleCI configuration

Use the following CircleCI configuration to download the BrowserStack CLI, run a sample Playwright-based load test, and upload JUnit XML reports as artifacts. Save it at .circleci/config.yml in your repository.

version: 2.1

jobs:
  load-test:
    docker:
      - image: cimg/base:current
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run:
          name: Verify BrowserStack credentials are set
          command: |
            : "${BROWSERSTACK_USERNAME:?set in Project Settings → Environment Variables}"
            : "${BROWSERSTACK_ACCESS_KEY:?set in Project Settings → Environment Variables}"
      - run:
          name: Run unit tests
          command: echo "Running unit tests"
      - run:
          name: Download BrowserStack CLI
          command: |
            OS=$(uname -s); ARCH=$(uname -m)
            [ "$OS" = "Darwin" ] && OS=macos || OS=linux
            case "$ARCH" in *arm*) ARCH=arm64 ;; *) ARCH=x64 ;; esac
            curl -fL "https://load-api.browserstack.com/api/v1/binary?os=${OS}&arch=${ARCH}" -o browserstack-cli.zip
            unzip -oq browserstack-cli.zip
            chmod +x browserstack-cli
      - run:
          name: Checkout sample Playwright project
          command: |
            curl -L https://github.com/browserstack/browserstack-playwright-load-testing-sample/archive/refs/heads/CI/CD-Sample-Playwright.tar.gz \
              | tar -xz --strip-components=1
      - run:
          name: Run BrowserStack load test
          command: ./browserstack-cli load run
      - store_artifacts:
          path: .
          destination: load-test-output
      - store_test_results:
          path: .

workflows:
  version: 2
  build-and-load-test:
    jobs:
      - load-test

Result

When this pipeline runs, it:

• Downloads the BrowserStack CLI for the current runner OS and architecture.
• Fetches the BrowserStack Playwright load-testing sample project.
• Starts a BrowserStack Load Testing run using your BrowserStack credentials.
• Stores the working directory as a CircleCI artifact and JUnit XML reports under the Tests tab.

Notes

• CircleCI free tier provides 6,000 build minutes per month; more than enough for routine load-test runs.
• The default cimg/base:current Docker image is Linux x64. For macOS or Windows resource classes, you need a paid plan.
• For organization-wide shared credentials, use Contexts (Organization Settings → Contexts) instead of per-project environment variables, then attach the context to the workflow under workflows.<workflow>.jobs.<job>.context.