Nightwatch with Selenium – Running Nightwatch Automation Scripts on LambdaTest Selenium Grid

LambdaTest Selenium Automation Grid is a cloud-based scalable Selenium testing platform which enables you to run your automation scripts on 2000+ different browsers and operating systems. You can now run your JavaScript Selenium automated test cases on a scalable Selenium infrastructure that is running real browsers and real operating systems.

This post will help you in getting started with configuring and running your JavaScript based automation test scripts on LambdaTest Selenium cloud platform using Nightwatch. This topic will help you to:

Run a sample Selenium Webdriver test using JavaScript on LambdaTest Automation.
To comprehend and configure Selenium test suite with respect to your capabilities.
Selecting the specific browsers to run your test on.
Explore advanced features of LambdaTest.
To run your test cases in parallel to reduce build times.
To test your locally hosted pages.

Prerequisites For Running Nightwatch and Selenium

Before getting started with Automated Scripts using Selenium with Nightwatch on LambdaTest Automation, you need to:

The first step is to download and install node.js and node package manager or npm. You should be having nodejs v6 or newer. Click here to download.
Make sure to use the latest version of JavaScript.
Make sure you have Nightwatch installed in your system, you can install it using the below command through npm:

Install Nightwatch through npm

  npm install nightwatch

1	npm install nightwatch

Download Selenium JavaScript bindings from the official Selenium website.
Once you download the JavaScript bindings, extract the ZIP file which you’ve downloaded. After extracting the file, you need to add Selenium Java bindings which is a JAR file and all the dependent libraries to your classpath.

Installing Selenium Dependencies For Node.js

Next step is to install Selenium dependencies for Node.js using npm. Here’s the command to run:

npm i selenium-webdriver

1	npm i selenium-webdriver

Download Lambda Tunnel binary file if you wish to test your locally hosted or privately hosted projects.

Follow our documentation on Lambda Tunnel to know it all. OS specific instructions to download and setup tunnel binary can be found at the following links.

Documentation For Windows User

Documentation For Mac User

Documentation For Linux User

Download the binary file of:

Getting Started With Nightwatch and LambdaTest

Running Nightwatch test scripts on LambdaTest Selenium grid is as easy as changing a few lines of code. To start with, you would have to invoke Selenium remote webdriver instead of local browser webdriver. In addition, since we are using remote webdriver, we have to define which browser environment we want to run the test. We do that by passing browser environment details to LambdaTest Selenium grid via desired capabilities class. You can use LambdaTest Capabilities Generator to select & pass those browser environment specifications.

Let’s checkout sample Nightwatch code running LambdaTest Selenium grid. This is a simple Nightwatch automation script that test a sample to-do list app. The code marks two list items as done, add a list item and then finally give the total number of pending items as output.

You can also find this code at our GitHub repository for Nightwatch.

//googleTest.js

var https = require('https');
 
module.exports = {
 
    '@tags': ['test'],
 
    'Google': function(client) {
        client
            .url('https://www.google.com/ncr')
            .waitForElementVisible('body', 10000)
            .setValue('input[type=text]', 'LambdaTest\n')
            .pause(1000)
            .assert.title('LambdaTest - Google Search')
            .end();
    },
 
    afterEach: function(client, done) {
        setTimeout(function() {
            done();
        }, 1000);
    }
};

//googleTest.js

var https = require('https');

module.exports = {

'@tags': ['test'],

'Google': function(client) {

client

.url('https://www.google.com/ncr')

.waitForElementVisible('body', 10000)

.setValue('input[type=text]', 'LambdaTest\n')

.pause(1000)

.assert.title('LambdaTest - Google Search')

.end();

afterEach: function(client, done) {

setTimeout(function() {

done();

}, 1000);

}

};

Below is the nightwatch.conf.js file where we will be declaring the desired capabilities.

//nightwatch.conf.js

module.exports = (function(settings) {
  console.log(settings["test_settings"]["default"]["username"])
  if (process.env.LT_USERNAME) {
    settings["test_settings"]["default"]["username"] = process.env.LT_USERNAME;
  }
  if (process.env.LT_ACCESS_KEY) {
    settings["test_settings"]["default"]["access_key"] = process.env.LT_ACCESS_KEY;
  }
  if (process.env.SELENIUM_HOST) {
    settings.selenium.host = process.env.SELENIUM_HOST;
  }
  if (process.env.SELENIUM_PORT) {
    settings.selenium.host = process.env.SELENIUM_PORT;
  }
  return settings;
})(require('./nightwatch.json'));

//nightwatch.conf.js

module.exports = (function(settings) {

console.log(settings["test_settings"]["default"]["username"])

if (process.env.LT_USERNAME) {

settings["test_settings"]["default"]["username"] = process.env.LT_USERNAME;

}

if (process.env.LT_ACCESS_KEY) {

settings["test_settings"]["default"]["access_key"] = process.env.LT_ACCESS_KEY;

}

if (process.env.SELENIUM_HOST) {

settings.selenium.host = process.env.SELENIUM_HOST;

}

if (process.env.SELENIUM_PORT) {

settings.selenium.host = process.env.SELENIUM_PORT;

}

return settings;

})(require('./nightwatch.json'));

Now, Let’s create nightwatch.json.

//nightwatch.json

{
  "src_folders" : ["tests"],
  "output_folder" : "reports",
  "page_objects_path" : "",
  "globals_path" : "",
 
  "selenium" : {
    "start_process" : false,
    "server_path" : "",
    "log_path" : "",
    "host" : "hub.lambdatest.com",
    "port" : 80,
    "cli_args" : {
      "webdriver.chrome.driver" : "",
      "webdriver.ie.driver" : "",
      "webdriver.firefox.profile" : ""
    }
  },
 
  "test_workers" : {"enabled" : true, "workers" : "auto"},
 
  "test_settings" : {
    "default" : {
      "launch_url" : "https://lambdatest.com",
      "selenium_port"  : 80,
      "selenium_host"  : "hub.lambdatest.com",
      "silent": false,
      "screenshots" : {
        "enabled" : true,
        "path" : ""
      },
      "username" : "",
      "access_key" : "",
 
      "skip_testcases_on_fail": false,
 
      "desiredCapabilities": {
        "build":"Nightwatch-Selenium-Sample",
        "visual":true,
        "video":true,
        "console":true,
        "network":true
      }
    },
 
    "chrome": {
      "desiredCapabilities": {
        "platform": "Windows 8",
        "browserName": "chrome",
        "version": "71.0"
      }
    },
    "safari" : {
      "desiredCapabilities": {
        "platform": "macos 10.13",
        "browserName": "safari",
        "version": "11.0"
      }
},
"firefox" : {
  "desiredCapabilities": {
    "platform": "win10",
    "browserName": "firefox",
    "version": "60"
  }
},
    "edge" : {
      "desiredCapabilities": {
        "platform": "Windows 10",
        "browserName": "MicrosoftEdge",
        "version": "17.0"
      }
    }
  }
}

//nightwatch.json

{

"src_folders" : ["tests"],

"output_folder" : "reports",

"page_objects_path" : "",

"globals_path" : "",

"selenium" : {

"start_process" : false,

"server_path" : "",

"log_path" : "",

"host" : "hub.lambdatest.com",

"port" : 80,

"cli_args" : {

"webdriver.chrome.driver" : "",

"webdriver.ie.driver" : "",

"webdriver.firefox.profile" : ""

}

"test_workers" : {"enabled" : true, "workers" : "auto"},

"test_settings" : {

"default" : {

"launch_url" : "https://lambdatest.com",

"selenium_port" : 80,

"selenium_host" : "hub.lambdatest.com",

"silent": false,

"screenshots" : {

"enabled" : true,

"path" : ""

"username" : "",

"access_key" : "",

"skip_testcases_on_fail": false,

"desiredCapabilities": {

"build":"Nightwatch-Selenium-Sample",

"visual":true,

"video":true,

"console":true,

"network":true

}

"chrome": {

"desiredCapabilities": {

"platform": "Windows 8",

"browserName": "chrome",

"version": "71.0"

}

"safari" : {

"desiredCapabilities": {

"platform": "macos 10.13",

"browserName": "safari",

"version": "11.0"

}

"firefox" : {

"desiredCapabilities": {

"platform": "win10",

"browserName": "firefox",

"version": "60"

}

"edge" : {

"desiredCapabilities": {

"platform": "Windows 10",

"browserName": "MicrosoftEdge",

"version": "17.0"

}

Now, finally add package.json file.

//package.json

{
  "name": "JS-Nightwatch.js",
  "version": "0.0.0",
  "description": "NightWatch examples for LambdaTest",
  "main": "",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch -e chrome,firefox,edge,safari tests"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "nightwatch": "^1.0.18"
  }
}

//package.json

{

"name": "JS-Nightwatch.js",

"version": "0.0.0",

"description": "NightWatch examples for LambdaTest",

"main": "",

"scripts": {

"test": "./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch -e chrome,firefox,edge,safari tests"

"devDependencies": {

"nightwatch": "^1.0.18"

}

The Selenium Webdriver test would open a URL, mark the first two items in the list as done, add an item in the list, and return the total number of pending item. Your results would be displayed on the test console (or command-line interface if you are using terminal/cmd) and on LambdaTest dashboard. LambdaTest Dashboard will help you view all your text logs, screenshots and video recording for your entire Selenium tests.

Execute The Test

You would need to execute the below command in your terminal/cmd.

// Running First Test

$ npm install
 
 
** Linux/Mac
$ ./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch -e chrome,edge,firefox tests
 
** Windows
$ node_modules\.bin\nightwatch -e chrome,edge,firefox tests

// Running First Test

$ npm install

** Linux/Mac

$ ./node_modules/.bin/nightwatch -e chrome,edge,firefox tests

** Windows

$ node_modules\.bin\nightwatch -e chrome,edge,firefox tests