Just Launch Chrome

Why cause sometimes you just want something to launch chrome with the remote debugging port set for you with or without defaults.

Getting Started

Installation

To use launch-chrome in your project, run:

yarn add just-launch-chrome
# or "npm i just-launch-chrome"

Usage

just-launch-chrome provides two basic operations finding Chrome/Chromium executables and launching Chrome/Chromium on supported platforms.

The supported platforms are

• Linux
• Mac OS (Darwin)
• Windows
• Windows Subsystems Linux

Finding Chrome

The simplest way to use just-launch-chrome as a means to find Chrome/Chromium executables is shown below

const { findChrome } = require('just-launch-chrome')

;(async () => {
 const executables = await findChrome()
 for (const exe of executables) {
   console.log(exe)
 }
})()

The return value of findChrome is an list, array, of discovered executables (path to the executable on the system).

launch-chrome also makes available each of the supported platforms finding functions available

• findChromeLinux
• findChromeDarwin
• findChromeWindows
• findChromeWSL

Launching Chrome

Launching chrome is done via the launch function as shown below

const { launch } = require('just-launch-chrome')

;(async () => {
  const { chromeProcess, closeBrowser, browserWSEndpoint } = await launch()

  // do stuff with chrome

  await closeBrowser()
})()

The return value of the function is a Promise that resolves to an object with the following properties

• (ChildProcess) chromeProcess - The reference to the spawned chrome process
• (function (): Promise) closeBrowser - A function that returns a Promise that resolves once the launched browser is closed
• (string) browserWSEndpoint - The CDP websocket URL of the browser

Optional configuration options

• (string) startingURL - The starting URL of the browser, defaults to about:blank
• (string) executable - The Chrome/Chromium executable used for launching, defaults to the first executable found via findChrome
• (string) userDataDir - Path to a directory to be used as the browser's user data directory, defaults to a temporary directory
• (string) userDataDirPrefix - A prefix for the created temporary directory
• (function(exes: Array): string) exeSelector - Function used to select the executable to be used rather than the first one found
• (Array) args - A list of launch args
• (boolean) handleSIGINT - should the launched browser be killed when the process receives the SIGINT signal, defaults to true
• (boolean) handleSIGTERM should the launched browser be killed when the process receives the SIGTERM signal, defaults to true
• (boolean) handleSIGHUP should the launched browser be killed when the process receives the SIGHUP signal, defaults to true
• (boolean) dumpio - Should the browsers std out and err be displayed, defaults to false
• (boolean) headless - Should the browser be launched in headless mode, defaults to false
• (boolean) devtools - Should the devtools be opened in all tabs created, defaults to false
• (boolean) muteAudio - Should audio be muted for all tabs opened, defaults to false
• (boolean) hideScrollBars - Should scroll bars be hidden for all tabs opened, defaults to false
• (number) port - The port number for the Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP), defaults to the port chosen by chrome
• (number) launchTimeout - Maximum length of time, in milliseconds, that should be waited before the launching of the browser is considered to not have happened, defaults to 30000
• (Object) env - Environment variables that superceded the processes own environment to be used when launching the browser, defaults to the process own environment variables