Edge Launcher

Launch Microsoft Edge with ease from node.

• Disables many Edge services that add noise to automated scenarios
• Opens up the browser's remote-debugging-port on an available port
• Automagically locates a Edge binary to launch
• Uses a fresh Edge profile for each launch, and cleans itself up on kill()
• Binds Ctrl-C (by default) to terminate the Edge process
• Exposes a small set of options for configurability over these details

_This project started as a fork of Chrome Launcher and inherits, whereas possible, all its features.

Installing

yarn add @rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher

# or with npm:
npm install @rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher

API

.launch([opts])

Launch options

{
  // (optional) remote debugging port number to use. If provided port is already busy, launch() will reject
  // Default: an available port is autoselected
  port: number;

  // (optional) Additional flags to pass to Edge, for example: ['--headless', '--disable-gpu']
  // See: https://github.com/microsoft/rnx-kit/incubator/chromium-edge-launcher/blob/main/docs/edge-flags-for-tools.md
  // Do note, many flags are set by default: https://github.com/microsoft/rnx-kit/incubator/chromium-edge-launcher/blob/main/src/flags.ts
  edgeFlags: Array<string>;

  // (optional) Close the Edge process on `Ctrl-C`
  // Default: true
  handleSIGINT: boolean;

  // (optional) Explicit path of intended Edge binary
  // * If this `edgePath` option is defined, it will be used.
  // * Otherwise, the `EDGE_PATH` env variable will be used if set. (`LIGHTHOUSE_CHROMIUM_PATH` is deprecated)
  // * Otherwise, a detected Edge Canary will be used if found
  // * Otherwise, a detected Edge (stable) will be used
  edgePath: string;

  // (optional) Edge profile path to use, if set to `false` then the default profile will be used.
  // By default, a fresh Edge profile will be created
  userDataDir: string | boolean;

  // (optional) Starting URL to open the browser with
  // Default: `about:blank`
  startingUrl: string;

  // (optional) Logging level
  // Default: 'silent'
  logLevel: 'verbose'|'info'|'error'|'silent';

  // (optional) Flags specific in [flags.ts](src/flags.ts) will not be included.
  // Typically used with the defaultFlags() method and edgeFlags option.
  // Default: false
  ignoreDefaultFlags: boolean;

  // (optional) Interval in ms, which defines how often launcher checks browser port to be ready.
  // Default: 500
  connectionPollInterval: number;

  // (optional) A number of retries, before browser launch considered unsuccessful.
  // Default: 50
  maxConnectionRetries: number;

  // (optional) A dict of environmental key value pairs to pass to the spawned edge process.
  envVars: {[key: string]: string};
};

Launched edge interface

.launch().then(edge => ...

// The remote debugging port exposed by the launched edge
edge.port: number;

// Method to kill Edge (and cleanup the profile folder)
edge.kill: () => Promise<void>;

// The process id
edge.pid: number;

// The childProcess object for the launched Edge
edge.process: childProcess

EdgeLauncher.Launcher.defaultFlags()

Returns an Array<string> of the default flags Edge is launched with. Typically used along with the ignoreDefaultFlags and edgeFlags options.

Note: This array will exclude the following flags: --remote-debugging-port --disable-setuid-sandbox --user-data-dir.

EdgeLauncher.Launcher.getInstallations()

Returns an Array<string> of paths to available Edge installations. When edgePath is not provided to .launch(), the first installation returned from this method is used instead.

Note: This method performs synchronous I/O operations.

.killAll()

Attempts to kill all Edge instances created with .launch([opts]). Returns a Promise that resolves to an array of errors that occurred while killing instances. If all instances were killed successfully, the array will be empty.

const EdgeLauncher = require("@rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher");

async function cleanup() {
  await EdgeLauncher.killAll();
}

Examples

Launching edge:

const EdgeLauncher = require("@rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher");

EdgeLauncher.launch({
  startingUrl: "https://google.com",
}).then((edge) => {
  console.log(`Edge debugging port running on ${edge.port}`);
});

Launching headless edge:

const EdgeLauncher = require("@rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher");

EdgeLauncher.launch({
  startingUrl: "https://google.com",
  edgeFlags: ["--headless", "--disable-gpu"],
}).then((edge) => {
  console.log(`Edge debugging port running on ${edge.port}`);
});

Launching with support for extensions and audio:

const EdgeLauncher = require('@rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher');

const newFlags = EdgeLauncher.Launcher.defaultFlags().filter(flag => flag !== '--disable-extensions' && flag !== '--mute-audio');

EdgeLauncher.launch({
  ignoreDefaultFlags: true,
  edgeFlags: newFlags,
}).then(edge => { ... });

Continuous Integration

In a CI environment like Travis, Edge may not be installed. If you want to use @rnx-kit/chromium-edge-launcher, Travis can install Edge at run time with an addon. Alternatively, you can also install Edge using the download-edge.sh script.

Then in .travis.yml, use it like so:

language: node_js
install:
  - yarn install
before_script:
  - export DISPLAY=:99.0
  - export CHROME_PATH="$(pwd)/edge-linux/edge"
  - sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start
  - sleep 3 # wait for xvfb to boot

addons:
  edge: stable

Acknowledgements

This project is a fork of https://github.com/cezaraugusto/chromium-edge-launcher which started as a fork of, and is inspired by https://github.com/cezaraugusto/chromium-edge-launcher which is released under the Apache-2.0 License, and is copyright of Google Inc.