chrome-debugging-client

An async/await friendly Chrome debugging client with TypeScript support, designed with automation in mind.

Table of Contents

• Features

• Examples

  • Print URL as PDF
  • Node Debugging

Features

• Promise API for async/await (most debugger commands are meant to be sequential).
• TypeScript support and uses "devtools-protocol" types, allowing you to pick a protocol version.
• Launches Chrome with a new temp user data folder so Chrome launches an isolated instance. (regardless if you already have Chrome open).
• Opens Chrome with a pipe message transport to the browser connection and supports attaching flattened session connections to targets.
• Supports cancellation in a way that avoids unhandled rejections, and allows you to add combine additional cancellation concerns.
• Supports seeing protocol debug messages with DEBUG=chrome-debugging-client:*
• Use with race-cancellation library to add timeouts or other cancellation concerns to tasks using the connection.
• The library was designed to be careful about not floating promises (promises are chained immediately after being created, combining concurrent promises with all or race), this avoids unhandled rejections.

Examples

Print URL as PDF

#!/usr/bin/env node
const { writeFileSync } = require("fs");
const { spawnChrome } = require("chrome-debugging-client");
 
/**
 * Print a url to a PDF file.
 * @param url {string} 
 * @param file {string} 
 */
async function printToPDF(url, file) {
  const chrome = spawnChrome({ headless: true });
  try {
    const browser = chrome.connection;
 
    // we create with a target of about:blank so that we can
    // setup Page events before navigating to url
    const { targetId } = await browser.send("Target.createTarget", {
      url: "about:blank",
    });
 
    const page = await browser.attachToTarget(targetId);
    // enable events for Page domain
    await page.send("Page.enable");
 
    // concurrently wait until load and navigate
    await Promise.all([
      page.until("Page.loadEventFired"),
      page.send("Page.navigate", { url }),
    ]);
 
    const { data } = await page.send("Page.printToPDF");
 
    writeFileSync(file, data, "base64");
 
    // attempt graceful close
    await chrome.close();
  } finally {
    // kill process if hasn't exited
    await chrome.dispose();
  }
 
  console.log(`${url} written to ${file}`);
}
 
if (process.argv.length < 4) {
  console.log(`usage: printToPDF.js url file`);
  console.log(
    `example: printToPDF.js https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_coefficient Binomial_coefficient.pdf`,
  );
  process.exit(1);
}
 
printToPDF(process.argv[2], process.argv[3]).catch((err) => {
  console.log("print failed %o", err);
});
 

Node Debugging

#!/usr/bin/env node
const { spawnWithWebSocket } = require("chrome-debugging-client");
 
async function main() {
  const script = `const obj = {
    hello: "world",
  };
  console.log("end");
  `;
 
  // start node requesting it break on start at debug port that
  // is available
  const node = await spawnWithWebSocket(process.execPath, [
    // node will pick an available port and wait for debugger
    "--inspect-brk=0",
    "-e",
    script,
  ]);
 
  async function doDebugging() {
    const { connection } = node;
 
    // Setup console api handler
    connection.on("Runtime.consoleAPICalled", ({ type, args }) => {
      console.log(`console.${type}: ${JSON.stringify(args)}`);
    });
 
    // We requested Node to break on start, so we runIfWaitingForDebugger
    // and wait for it to break at the start of our script.
    // These commands must be sent concurrently with
    // the pause event setup.
    const [ 
      {
        callFrames: [
          {
            location: { scriptId },
          },
        ],
        reason,
      },
    ] = await Promise.all([
      connection.until("Debugger.paused"),
      connection.send("Debugger.enable"),
      connection.send("Runtime.enable"),
      connection.send("Runtime.runIfWaitingForDebugger"),
    ]);
    // Right now we are paused at the start of the script
    console.log(`paused reason: ${reason}`); //= paused: Break on start
    console.log(`set breakpoint on line 3`);
    await connection.send("Debugger.setBreakpoint", {
      location: {
        lineNumber: 3,
        scriptId,
      },
    });
 
    console.log("resume and wait for next paused event");
    const [breakpoint] = await Promise.all([
      connection.until("Debugger.paused"),
      connection.send("Debugger.resume"),
    ]);
    const {
      callFrames: [{ location, callFrameId }],
    } = breakpoint;
    console.log(`paused at line ${location.lineNumber}`);
 
    console.log("evaluate `obj`");
    const { result } = await connection.send("Debugger.evaluateOnCallFrame", {
      callFrameId,
      expression: "obj",
      returnByValue: true,
    });
    console.log(JSON.stringify(result.value)); //= {"hello":"world"}
 
    console.log("resume and wait for execution context to be destroyed");
    await Promise.all([
      connection.until("Runtime.executionContextDestroyed"),
      connection.send("Debugger.resume"),
    ]);
  }
 
  try {
    await doDebugging();
 
    // Node is still alive here and waiting for the debugger to disconnect
    console.log("close websocket");
    node.close();
 
    // Node should exit on its own after the websocket closes
    console.log("wait for exit");
    await node.waitForExit();
 
    console.log("node exited");
  } finally {
    // kill process if still alive
    await node.dispose();
  }
}
 
main().catch((err) => {
  console.log("print failed %o", err);
});