Edge Launcher

Launch Microsoft Edge with ease from Node.js.

• 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.

Installing

1yarn add chromium-edge-launcher
2
3# or with npm:
4npm install chromium-edge-launcher

API

.launch([opts])

Launch options

1{
2  // (optional) remote debugging port number to use.
3  // If provided port is already busy, launch() will reject.
4  // Default: an available port is autoselected
5  port: number;
6
7  // (optional) Additional flags to pass to Edge,
8  // for example: ['--headless', '--disable-gpu'].
9  // See: https://github.com/cezaraugusto/chromium-edge-launcher/blob/main/docs/edge-flags-for-tools.md
10  // Do note, many flags are set by default.
11  // See https://github.com/cezaraugusto/chromium-edge-launcher/blob/master/src/flags.ts
12  edgeFlags: Array<string>;
13
14  // (optional) Close the Edge process on `Ctrl-C`.
15  // Default: true
16  handleSIGINT: boolean;
17
18  // (optional) Explicit path of intended Edge binary.
19  // * If this `edgePath` option is defined, it will be used.
20  // * Otherwise, the `EDGE_PATH` env variable will be used if set.
21  // (`LIGHTHOUSE_CHROMIUM_PATH` is deprecated)
22  // * Otherwise, a detected Edge Canary will be used if found.
23  // * Otherwise, a detected Edge (stable) will be used.
24  edgePath: string;
25
26  // (optional) Edge profile path to use, if set to `false` then
27  // the default profile will be used.
28  // Default: a fresh Edge profile.
29  userDataDir: string | boolean;
30
31  // (optional) Starting URL to open the browser with
32  // Default: `about:blank`
33  startingUrl: string;
34
35  // (optional) Logging level
36  // Default: 'silent'
37  logLevel: 'verbose'|'info'|'error'|'silent';
38
39  // (optional) Flags specific in [flags.ts](src/flags.ts) will
40  // not be included. Typically used with the defaultFlags() method
41  // and edgeFlags option.
42  // Default: false
43  ignoreDefaultFlags: boolean;
44
45  // (optional) Interval in ms, which defines how often launcher checks
46  // browser port to be ready.
47  // Default: 500
48  connectionPollInterval: number;
49
50  // (optional) A number of retries, before browser launch
51  // considered unsuccessful.
52  // Default: 50
53  maxConnectionRetries: number;
54
55  // (optional) A dict of environmental key value pairs to pass to
56  // the spawned edge process.
57  envVars: {[key: string]: string};
58};

Launched edge interface

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

1// The remote debugging port exposed by the launched edge
2edge.port: number;
3
4// Method to kill Edge (and cleanup the profile folder)
5edge.kill: () => Promise<void>;
6
7// The process id
8edge.pid: number;
9
10// The childProcess object for the launched Edge
11edge.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.

1const EdgeLauncher = require('chromium-edge-launcher');
2
3async function cleanup() {
4  await EdgeLauncher.killAll();
5}

Examples

Launching Edge:

1const EdgeLauncher = require('chromium-edge-launcher');
2
3EdgeLauncher.launch({
4  startingUrl: 'https://google.com'
5}).then(edge => {
6  console.log(`Edge debugging port running on ${edge.port}`);
7});

Launching headless Edge:

1const EdgeLauncher = require('chromium-edge-launcher');
2
3EdgeLauncher.launch({
4  startingUrl: 'https://google.com',
5  edgeFlags: ['--headless', '--disable-gpu']
6}).then(edge => {
7  console.log(`Edge debugging port running on ${edge.port}`);
8});

Launching with support for extensions and audio:

1const EdgeLauncher = require('chromium-edge-launcher');
2
3const newFlags = EdgeLauncher.Launcher.defaultFlags().filter(flag => flag !== '--disable-extensions' && flag !== '--mute-audio');
4
5EdgeLauncher.launch({
6  ignoreDefaultFlags: true,
7  edgeFlags: newFlags,
8}).then(edge => { ... });

Continuous Integration

In a CI environment like Travis, Edge may not be installed. If you want to use 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:

1language: node_js
2install:
3  - yarn install
4before_script:
5  - export DISPLAY=:99.0
6  - export CHROME_PATH="$(pwd)/edge-linux/edge"
7  - sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start
8  - sleep 3 # wait for xvfb to boot
9
10addons:
11  edge: stable

Acknowledgements

This project started as a fork of Chrome Launcher, which is released under the Apache-2.0 License, and is copyright of Google Inc. Original contributors and git commit history kept intact for proper attribution.