Debugtopus is our open source tool enabling you to run tests locally for easier debugging. Follow the steps below to execute a test case on your machine and against your local dev environment. This is good for setting breakpoints and stepping through the code once our tests have identified an issue.

1. Get shell script

Click on run locally to get a shell script snippet which you can use to install and start Debugtopus.

screenshot 02/2024

screenshot 02/2024

Click on “copy to clipboard”.

screenshot 02/2024

screenshot 02/2024

2. Start test locally

Open a terminal window and paste the shell script from your clipboard.

screenshot 02/2024

screenshot 02/2024

Now change the url with the url of your locally running application. In the example screenshot below, the placeholder was replaced with localhost:3000. You might also have to include the route to the starting point. For example, if your test case assumes to run from the sign-in page you have to add the route to the sign-in page e.g. localhost:3000/signin.

screenshot 02/2024

screenshot 02/2024

3. First time users

If either Playwright or Chromium are not available on your computer, the shell script command will install the Debugtopus package and its dependencies on your computer. You have to confirm by entering y.

Debugtopus install screenshot

Install Debugtopus

The biggest portion of this package is Playwright. If you want to see the full package list, please check out the Debugtopus Github repository.

If you do not have Chromium installed, debugtopus will run npx playwright install chromium for you and the first run will take some time to complete.

4. Run test locally

Click the run button which is displayed on the right side of the test case to run your test.

Run test screenshot

Run test

Now the Playwright UI is shown.

Playwright UI screenshot

Playwright UI screenshot