Try Puppeteer!

Run Puppeteer scripts in the cloud.

Develop

Installation:

yarn; yarn install-backend
# or npm i

Backend

The backend is a Docker container which installs the latest Chrome package that works with Puppeteer on Linux.

Note: You'll need to have Docker running before attempting each step in this section.

Building it

yarn build

Running the container

The container can be run in two modes: standalone as an executable, or as a web service.

1. Using the standalone CLI

The first is a "standalone" mode that runs a Puppeteer script from the CLI. It takes a script file as an argument and runs it in the container.

./backend/run_puppeteer.sh your-puppeteer-script.js

2. Running the web service

The second option is running the container as a web server. The endpoint accepts file uploads for running your Puppeteer scripts in the cloud:

Start the server:

cd backend
yarn serve
# yarn restart is handy too. It rebuilds the container and starts the server.

Example - running a Puppeteer script

async function runCode(code) {
  const form = new FormData();
  form.append('file', new Blob([code], {type: 'text/javascript'}));
  const resp = await fetch('http://localhost:8080/run', {method: 'POST', body: form});
  return await resp.json();
}

const code = `
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('https://example.com');
  console.log(await page.content());
  browser.close();
`;

runCode(code).then(result => {
  if (result.errors) {
    console.error(result.errors);
  }
  console.log(result.log);
});

Notes:

• There's no need to require('puppeteer'). This is done for you on the backend.
• Top-level async/await are supported.

Code editor frontend

Fire up the code editor UI from the main directory:

yarn serve

Then navigate to http://localhost:8081.

Deployment

1. Update the version of Puppeteer used in index.html, include the doc link. TODO: make this automatic.

2. yarn deploy deploys both the frontend and backend services to App Engine Flex. The apps can also be deployed individually:

yarn deploy-frontend
yarn deploy-backend

Notes & Limitations

• By default, Puppeteer launches and uses its own bundled version of Chromium. To use the google-chrome-unstable installed by the container, pass executablePath:

  const browser = await puppeteer.launch({
    executablePath: 'google-chrome-unstable'
  });