JBlackCat / try-puppeteer

Run Puppeteer code in the cloud

Try Puppeteer!

Run Puppeteer scripts in the cloud.

Try it: https://try-puppeteer.appspot.com

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 you can from 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 in 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 it's 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'
  });