Introduction to WebdriverIO

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WebdriverIO is an automation tool which lets you control a browser or a mobile application with just a few lines of code.

WebDriverIO provides language bindings for the powerful browser-driving tool Selenium.

WebdriverIO can be used for various purposes. It implements the Webdriver protocol API and can run browser in an automated way.

The framework is designed to work in any arbitrary environment and for any kind of task. It is independent from any 3rd party frameworks and only requires Node.js to run.
 
Key Points

  • Asynchronous commands can be written in a synchronous way using integrated test runner.
  • It provides useful shortcuts which can be chained in order to move deeper in the DOM tree without using complex xPath selectors.
  • It comes with different hooks. 
  • It can be integrated with 3rd party tools like Appium.
  • WebdriverIO works in combination with most of the TDD and BDD test frameworks in the JavaScript world.
  • You can use it a scraper tool to dynamically fetch website data in an automated way or integrate it in your own automation library.
  • You can run your test in the cloud. Services like Sauce Lab, Crossbrowsertesting or BrowserStack provide selenium testing on remote hosts.