Appium Flutter Driver

Appium Flutter Driver is a test automation tool for Flutter apps on multiple platforms/OSes. Appium Flutter Driver is part of the Appium mobile test automation tool maintained by community. Feel free to create PRs to fix issues/improve this driver.

This package is still experiment, breaking changes and breaking codes are to be expected! All contributions, including non-code, are welcome! See TODO list below.

Flutter Driver vs Appium Flutter Driver

Even though Flutter comes with superb integration test support, Flutter Driver, it does not fit some specific use cases, such as

• writing test in other languages than Dart
• running integration test for Flutter app with embedded webview or native view, or existing native app with embedded Flutter view
• running test on multiple devices simultaneously
• running integration test on device farms, such as Sauce Labs, AWS, Firebase

Under the hood, Appium Flutter Driver use the Dart VM Service Protocol with extension ext.flutter.driver, similar to Flutter Driver, to control the Flutter app-under-test (AUT).

Installation

In order to use appium-flutter-driver, we need to use appium version 1.16.0 or higher. The version 1.0.0 and higher requires Appium 2.0.

With Appium 2:

appium driver install flutter

With Appium 1:

npm i -g appium-flutter-driver

Usage

If you are unfamiliar with running Appium tests, start with Appium Getting Starting first.

Your Flutter app-under-test (AUT) must be compiled in debug or profile mode, because Flutter Driver does not support running in release mode.. Also, ensure that your Flutter AUT has enableFlutterDriverExtension() before runApp. Then, please make sure your app imported flutter_driver package as well.

This snippet, taken from example dir, is a script written as an appium client with webdriverio, and assumes you have appium server (with appium-flutter-driver installed) running on the same host and default port (4723). For more info, see example's README.md

Desired Capabilities for flutter driver only

Capability	Description	Example Values
retryBackoffTime	the time wait for socket connection retry for get flutter session (default 3000ms)	500
maxRetryCount	the count for socket connection retry for get flutter session (default 30)	20
observatoryWsUri	the URL to attacch to the Dart VM. In general, the flutter driver finds the WebSocket URL from device log such as logcat. You can skip the find the URL steps by specifying this capability. Then, this driver try to establish a session by following the given WebSocket URL.	'ws://127.0.0.1:60992/aaaaaaaaaaa=/ws'

const wdio = require('webdriverio');
const assert = require('assert');
const { byValueKey } = require('appium-flutter-finder');

const osSpecificOps = process.env.APPIUM_OS === 'android' ? {
  platformName: 'Android',
  deviceName: 'Pixel 2',
  // @todo support non-unix style path
  app: __dirname +  '/../apps/app-free-debug.apk',
}: process.env.APPIUM_OS === 'ios' ? {
  platformName: 'iOS',
  platformVersion: '12.2',
  deviceName: 'iPhone X',
  noReset: true,
  app: __dirname +  '/../apps/Runner.zip',

} : {};

const opts = {
  port: 4723,
  capabilities: {
    ...osSpecificOps,
    automationName: 'Flutter',
    retryBackoffTime: 500
  }
};

(async () => {
  const counterTextFinder = byValueKey('counter');
  const buttonFinder = byValueKey('increment');

  const driver = await wdio.remote(opts);

  if (process.env.APPIUM_OS === 'android') {
    await driver.switchContext('NATIVE_APP');
    await (await driver.$('~fab')).click();
    await driver.switchContext('FLUTTER');
  } else {
    console.log('Switching context to `NATIVE_APP` is currently only applicable to Android demo app.')
  }

  assert.strictEqual(await driver.getElementText(counterTextFinder), '0');

  await driver.elementClick(buttonFinder);
  await driver.touchAction({
    action: 'tap',
    element: { elementId: buttonFinder }
  });

  assert.strictEqual(await driver.getElementText(counterTextFinder), '2');

  driver.deleteSession();
})();

API

Legend:

Icon	Description
✅	integrated to CI
🆗	manual tested without CI
⚠️	availalbe without manual tested
❌	unavailable

Finders

Flutter Driver API	Status	WebDriver example
ancestor	🆗
bySemanticsLabel	🆗
byTooltip	🆗	byTooltip('Increment')
byType	🆗	byType('TextField')
byValueKey	🆗	byValueKey('counter')
descendant	🆗
pageBack	🆗	pageBack()
text	🆗	byText('foo')

Commands

The below WebDriver example is by webdriverio. flutter: prefix commands are mobile: command in appium for Android and iOS. Please replace them properly with your client.

Flutter API	Status	WebDriver example	Scope
FlutterDriver.connectedTo	🆗	wdio.remote(opts)	Session
checkHealth	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:checkHealth')	Session
clearTextbox	🆗	driver.elementClear(find.byType('TextField'))	Session
clearTimeline	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:clearTimeline')	Session
close	🆗	driver.deleteSession()	Session
enterText	🆗	driver.elementSendKeys(find.byType('TextField'), 'I can enter text') (no focus required) driver.elementClick(find.byType('TextField')); driver.execute('flutter:enterText', 'I can enter text') (focus required by tap/click first)	Session
forceGC	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:forceGC')	Session
getBottomLeft	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getBottomLeft', buttonFinder)	Widget
getBottomRight	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getBottomRight', buttonFinder)	Widget
getCenter	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getCenter', buttonFinder)	Widget
getRenderObjectDiagnostics	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getRenderObjectDiagnostics', counterTextFinder)	Widget
getRenderTree	🆗	driver.execute('flutter: getRenderTree')	Session
getSemanticsId	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getSemanticsId', counterTextFinder)	Widget
getText	🆗	driver.getElementText(counterTextFinder)	Widget
getTopLeft	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getTopLeft', buttonFinder)	Widget
getTopRight	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:getTopRight', buttonFinder)	Widget
getVmFlags	❌		Session
getWidgetDiagnostics	❌		Widget
requestData	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:requestData', json.dumps({"deepLink": "myapp://item/id1"}))	Session
runUnsynchronized	❌		Session
setFrameSync	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:setFrameSync', bool , durationMilliseconds)	Session
screenshot	🆗	driver.takeScreenshot()	Session
screenshot	🆗	driver.saveScreenshot('a.png')	Session
scroll	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:scroll', find.byType('ListView'), {dx: 50, dy: -100, durationMilliseconds: 200, frequency: 30})	Widget
scrollIntoView	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:scrollIntoView', find.byType('TextField'), {alignment: 0.1})	Widget
scrollUntilVisible	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:scrollUntilVisible', find.byType('ListView'), {item:find.byType('TextField'), dxScroll: 90, dyScroll: -400});	Widget
setSemantics	❌		Session
setTextEntryEmulation	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:setTextEntryEmulation', false)	Session
startTracing	❌		Session
stopTracingAndDownloadTimeline	❌		Session
tap	🆗	driver.elementClick(buttonFinder)	Widget
tap	🆗	driver.touchAction({action: 'tap', element: {elementId: buttonFinder}})	Widget
traceAction	❌		Session
waitFor	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:waitFor', buttonFinder, {durationMilliseconds: 100})	Widget
waitForAbsent	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:waitForAbsent', buttonFinder)	Widget
waitUntilNoTransientCallbacks	❌		Widget
❓	🆗	setContext	Appium
❓	🆗	getCurrentContext	Appium
❓	🆗	getContexts	Appium
❓	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:longTap', find.byValueKey('increment'), {durationMilliseconds: 10000, frequency: 30})	Widget
❓	🆗	driver.execute('flutter:waitForFirstFrame')	Widget

Note

• Flutter context does not support page source
  • Please use getRenderTree command instead
• You can send appium-xcuitest-driver/appium-uiautomator2-driver commands in NATIVE_APP context

TODO

• CI (unit test / integration test with demo app)
• CD (automatic publish to npm)
• finder as a seperate package
• switching context between Flutter and AndroidView
• switching context between Flutter and UiKitView
• switching context between Flutter and webview (via UIA2/XCUITest WebView contexts)
• Flutter-version-aware API
• Error handling

Test Status

Release appium-flutter-driver

$ cd driver
$ npm shrinkwrap  # to specify the dependencies in the npm module
$ npm version <major|minor|patch>
$ git commit -am 'chore: bump version'
$ git tag <version number> # e.g. git tag v0.0.32
$ git push origin v0.0.32
$ npm publish