OCR Testing Service

@wdio/ocr-service is a 3rd party package, for more information please see GitHub | npm

For documentation on visual testing with WebdriverIO, please refer to the docs. This project contains all relevant modules for running visual tests with WebdriverIO. Within the ./packages directory you will find:

• @wdio/visual-service: the WebdriverIO service for integrating visual testing
• @wdio/image-comparison-core: the core image comparison engine used by the service
• @wdio/ocr-service: the WebdriverIO service for OCR-based testing
• @wdio/visual-reporter: the HTML report generator for visual testing results

Versions & Support

Version	npm tag	Status	Supported until
v10 — @wdio/visual-service@10 / @wdio/image-comparison-core@2	latest	✅ Active development	—
v9 — @wdio/visual-service@9 / @wdio/image-comparison-core@1	legacy	🛠️ Maintenance (critical fixes only)	12 months after the v10 release

[!IMPORTANT] v10 replaces the image comparison engine (resemble.js → pixelmatch). The public API is unchanged, but mismatch percentages differ slightly, so you need to re-accept your baselines once after upgrading.

Staying on v9

v9 receives critical bug and security fixes only for 12 months after the v10 release. Pin it with a semver range, which always resolves to the v9 line regardless of npm tags:

npm install @wdio/visual-service@^9

Once v9 maintenance releases are published, they are also available under the legacy tag:

npm install @wdio/visual-service@legacy

Installing without a version (npm install @wdio/visual-service) always gives you the latest v10.

Upgrading from v9 to v10

1. Install the latest: npm install @wdio/visual-service@latest.
2. Re-run your suite once and re-accept the baselines so they are regenerated with the new engine.
3. No code changes are required — checkScreen, checkElement, checkFullPageScreen and the matchers keep the same signatures and ignore options.

When v9 reaches end of life it will be marked deprecated on npm.

Storybook Runner (BETA)

Click to find out more documentation about the Storybook Runner BETA

Storybook Runner is still in BETA, the docs will later move to the WebdriverIO documentation pages.

This module now supports Storybook with a new Visual Runner. This runner automatically scans for a local/remote storybook instance and will create element screenshots of each component. This can be done by adding

export const config: WebdriverIO.Config = {
    // ...
    services: ["visual"],
    // ....
};

to your services and running npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook through the command line. It will use Chrome in headless mode as the default browser.

[!NOTE]

• Most of the Visual Testing options will also work for the Storybook Runner, see the WebdriverIO documentation.
• The Storybook Runner will overwrite all your capabilities and can only run on the browsers that it supports, see --browsers.
• The Storybook Runner does not support an existing config that uses Multiremote capabilities and will throw an error.
• The Storybook Runner only supports Desktop Web, not Mobile Web.

Storybook Runner Service Options

Service options can be provided like this

export const config: WebdriverIO.Config  = {
    // ...
    services: [
      [
        'visual',
        {
            // Some default options
            baselineFolder: join(process.cwd(), './__snapshots__/'),
            debug: true,
            // The storybook options, see cli options for the description
            storybook: {
                additionalSearchParams: new URLSearchParams({foo: 'bar', abc: 'def'}),
                clip: false,
                clipSelector: ''#some-id,
                numShards: 4,
                // `skipStories` can be a string ('example-button--secondary'),
                // an array (['example-button--secondary', 'example-button--small'])
                // or a regex which needs to be provided as as string ("/.*button.*/gm")
                skipStories: ['example-button--secondary', 'example-button--small'],
                url: 'https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/storybook/',
                version: 6,
                // Optional - Allows overriding the baselines path. By default it will group the baselines by category and component (e.g. forms/input/baseline.png)
                getStoriesBaselinePath: (category, component) => `path__${category}__${component}`,
            },
        },
      ],
    ],
    // ....
}

Storybook Runner CLI options

--additionalSearchParams

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: ''
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --additionalSearchParams="foo=bar&abc=def"

It will add additional search parameters to the Storybook URL. See the URLSearchParams documentation for more information. The string must be a valid URLSearchParams string.

[!NOTE] The double quotes are needed to prevent the & from being interpreted as a command separator. For example with --additionalSearchParams="foo=bar&abc=def" it will generate the following Storybook URL for stories test: http://storybook.url/iframe.html?id=story-id&foo=bar&abc=def.

--browsers

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: chrome, you can select from chrome|firefox|edge|safari
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --browsers=chrome,firefox,edge,safari
• NOTE: Only available through the CLI

It will use the provided browsers to take component screenshots

[!NOTE] Make sure you have the browsers you want to run on installed on your local machine

--clip

• Type: boolean
• Mandatory: No
• Default: true
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --clip=false

When disabled it will create a viewport screenshot. When enabled it will create element screenshots based on the --clipSelector which will reduce the amount of whitespace around the component screenshot and reduce the screenshot size.

--clipSelector

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: #storybook-root > :first-child for Storybook V7 and #root > :first-child:not(script):not(style) for Storybook V6, see also --version
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --clipSelector="#some-id"

This is the selector that will be used:

• to select the element to take the screenshot of
• for the element to wait to be visible before a screenshot is taken

--devices

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: You can select from the deviceDescriptors.ts
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --devices="iPhone 14 Pro Max","Pixel 3 XL"
• NOTE: Only available through the CLI

It will use the provided devices that match the deviceDescriptors.ts to take component screenshots

[!NOTE]

• If you miss a device config, then feel free to submit a Feature request
• This will only work with Chrome:
  • if you provide --devices then all Chrome instances will run in Mobile Emulation mode
  • if you also provide other browser then Chrome, like --devices --browsers=firefox,safari,edge it will automatically add Chrome in Mobile emulation mode
• The Storybook Runner will by default create element snapshots, if you want to see the complete Mobile Emulated screenshot then provide --clip=false through the command line
• The file name will for example look like __snapshots__/example/button/desktop_chrome/example-button--large-local-chrome-iPhone-14-Pro-Max-430x932-dpr-3.png
• SRC: Testing a mobile website on a desktop using mobile emulation can be useful, but testers should be aware that there are many subtle differences such as:
  • entirely different GPU, which may lead to big performance changes;
  • mobile UI is not emulated (in particular, the hiding url bar affects page height);
  • disambiguation popup (where you select one of a few touch targets) is not supported;
  • many hardware APIs (for example, orientationchange event) are unavailable.

--headless

• Type: boolean
• Mandatory: No
• Default: true
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --headless=false
• NOTE: Only available through the CLI

This will run the tests by default in headless mode (when the browser supports it) or can be disabled

--numShards

• Type: number
• Mandatory: No
• Default: true
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --numShards=10

This will be the number of parallel instances that will be used to run the stories. This will be limited by the maxInstances in your wdio.conf-file.

[!IMPORTANT] When running in headless-mode then do not increase the number to more than 20 to prevent flakiness due to resource restrictions

--skipStories

• Type: string|regex
• Mandatory: No
• Default: null
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --skipStories="/.*button.*/gm"

This can be:

• a string (example-button--secondary,example-button--small)
• or a regex ("/.*button.*/gm")

to skip certain stories. Use the id of the story that can be found in the URL of the story. For example, the id in this URL http://localhost:6006/?path=/story/example-page--logged-out is example-page--logged-out

--url

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: http://127.0.0.1:6006
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --url="https://example.com"

The URL where your Storybook instance is hosted.

--version

• Type: number
• Mandatory: No
• Default: 7
• Example: npx wdio tests/configs/wdio.local.desktop.storybook.conf.ts --storybook --version=6

This is the version of Storybook, it defaults to 7. This is needed to know if the V6 clipSelector needs to be used.

Storybook Interaction Testing

Storybook Interaction Testing allows you to interact with your component by creating custom scripts with WDIO commands to set a component into a certain state. For example, see the code snippet below:

import { browser, expect } from "@wdio/globals";

describe("Storybook Interaction", () => {
    it("should create screenshots for the logged in state when it logs out", async () => {
        const componentId = "example-page--logged-in";
        await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ id: componentId });

        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-in-state`
        );
        await $("button=Log out").click();
        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-out-state`
        );
    });

    it("should create screenshots for the logged out state when it logs in", async () => {
        const componentId = "example-page--logged-out";
        await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ id: componentId });

        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-out-state`
        );
        await $("button=Log in").click();
        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-in-state`
        );
    });
});

Two tests on two different components are executed. Each test first sets a state and then takes a screenshot. You will also notice that a new custom command has been introduced, which can be found here.

The above spec file can be saved in a folder and added to the command line with the following command:

pnpm run test.local.desktop.storybook.localhost -- --spec='tests/specs/storybook-interaction/*.ts'

The Storybook runner will first automatically scan your Storybook instance and then add your tests to the stories that need to be compared. If you don't want the components that you use for interaction testing to be compared twice, you can add a filter to remove the "default" stories from the scan by providing the --skipStories filter. This would look like this:

pnpm run test.local.desktop.storybook.localhost -- --skipStories="/example-page.*/gm" --spec='tests/specs/storybook-interaction/*.ts'

New Custom Command

A new custom command called browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ id: 'componentId' }) will be added to the browser/driver-object that will automatically load the component and wait for it to be done, so you don't need to use the browser.url('url.com') method. It can be used like this

import { browser, expect } from "@wdio/globals";

describe("Storybook Interaction", () => {
    it("should create screenshots for the logged in state when it logs out", async () => {
        const componentId = "example-page--logged-in";
        await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ id: componentId });

        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-in-state`
        );
        await $("button=Log out").click();
        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-out-state`
        );
    });

    it("should create screenshots for the logged out state when it logs in", async () => {
        const componentId = "example-page--logged-out";
        await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ id: componentId });

        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-out-state`
        );
        await $("button=Log in").click();
        await expect($("header")).toMatchElementSnapshot(
            `${componentId}-logged-in-state`
        );
    });
});

The options are:

additionalSearchParams

• Type: URLSearchParams
• Mandatory: No
• Default: new URLSearchParams()
• Example:

await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({
    additionalSearchParams: new URLSearchParams({ foo: "bar", abc: "def" }),
    id: "componentId",
});

This will add additional search parameters to the Storybook URL, in the example above the URL will be http://storybook.url/iframe.html?id=story-id&foo=bar&abc=def. See the URLSearchParams documentation for more information.

clipSelector

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: #storybook-root > :first-child for Storybook V7 and #root > :first-child:not(script):not(style) for Storybook V6
• Example:

await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({
    clipSelector: "#your-selector",
    id: "componentId",
});

This is the selector that will be used:

• to select the element to take the screenshot of
• for the element to wait to be visible before a screenshot is taken

id

• Type: string
• Mandatory: yes
• Example:

await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({ '#your-selector', id: 'componentId' })

Use the id of the story that can be found in the URL of the story. For example, the id in this URL http://localhost:6006/?path=/story/example-page--logged-out is example-page--logged-out

timeout

• Type: number
• Mandatory: No
• Default: 1100 milliseconds
• Example:

await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({
    id: "componentId",
    timeout: 20000,
});

The max timeout we want to wait for a component to be visible after loading on the page

url

• Type: string
• Mandatory: No
• Default: http://127.0.0.1:6006
• Example:

await browser.waitForStorybookComponentToBeLoaded({
    id: "componentId",
    url: "https://your.url",
});

The URL where your Storybook instance is hosted.

Contributing

Updating the packages

You can update the packages with a simple CLI tool. Make sure you've installed all dependencies, you can then run

pnpm update.packages

This will trigger a CLI that will ask you the following questions

==========================
🤖 Package update Wizard 🧙
==========================

? Which version target would you like to update to? (Minor|Latest)
? Do you want to update the package.json files? (Y/n)
? Do you want to remove all "node_modules" and reinstall dependencies? (Y/n)
? Would you like reinstall the dependencies? (Y/n)

This will result in the following logs

Open to see an example of the logs

==========================
🤖 Package update Wizard 🧙
==========================

? Which version target would you like to update to? Minor
? Do you want to update the package.json files? yes
Updating root 'package.json' for minor updates...
Updating packages for minor updates in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing...
Using pnpm
Upgrading /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/package.json
[====================] 38/38 100%

@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin ^8.7.0 → ^8.8.0
@typescript-eslint/parser ^8.7.0 → ^8.8.0
@typescript-eslint/utils ^8.7.0 → ^8.8.0
@vitest/coverage-v8 ^2.1.1 → ^2.1.2
vitest ^2.1.1 → ^2.1.2

Run pnpm install to install new versions.
Updating packages for minor updates in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/ocr-service...
Using pnpm
Upgrading /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/ocr-service/package.json
[====================] 11/11 100%

All dependencies match the minor package versions :)
Updating packages for minor updates in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/visual-reporter...
Using pnpm
Upgrading /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/visual-reporter/package.json
[====================] 11/11 100%

eslint-config-next 14.2.13 → 14.2.14
next 14.2.13 → 14.2.14

Run pnpm install to install new versions.
Updating packages for minor updates in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/visual-service...
Using pnpm
Upgrading /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/visual-service/package.json
[====================] 5/5 100%

All dependencies match the minor package versions :)
Updating packages for minor updates in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/webdriver-image-comparison...
Using pnpm
Upgrading /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing/packages/webdriver-image-comparison/package.json
[====================] 8/8 100%

All dependencies match the minor package versions :)
? Do you want to remove all "node_modules" and reinstall dependencies? yes
Removing root dependencies in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing...
Removing dependencies in ocr-service...
Removing dependencies in visual-reporter...
Removing dependencies in visual-service...
Removing dependencies in webdriver-image-comparison...
? Would you like reinstall the dependencies? yes
Installing dependencies in /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing...

> @wdio/visual-testing-monorepo@ pnpm.install.workaround /Users/wswebcreation/Git/wdio/visual-testing
> pnpm install --shamefully-hoist

Scope: all 5 workspace projects
Lockfile is up to date, resolution step is skipped
Packages: +1274
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Progress: resolved 1274, reused 1265, downloaded 0, added 1274, done

dependencies:

-   @wdio/ocr-service 2.0.0 <- packages/ocr-service
-   @wdio/visual-service 6.0.0 <- packages/visual-service

devDependencies:

-   @changesets/cli 2.27.8
-   @inquirer/prompts 5.5.0
-   @tsconfig/node20 20.1.4
-   @types/eslint 9.6.1
-   @types/jsdom 21.1.7
-   @types/node 20.16.4
-   @types/react 18.3.5
-   @types/react-dom 18.3.0
-   @types/xml2js 0.4.14
-   @typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin 8.8.0
-   @typescript-eslint/parser 8.8.0
-   @typescript-eslint/utils 8.8.0
-   @vitest/coverage-v8 2.1.2
-   @wdio/appium-service 9.1.2
-   @wdio/cli 9.1.2
-   @wdio/globals 9.1.2
-   @wdio/local-runner 9.1.2
-   @wdio/mocha-framework 9.1.2
-   @wdio/sauce-service 9.1.2
-   @wdio/shared-store-service 9.1.2
-   @wdio/spec-reporter 9.1.2
-   @wdio/types 9.1.2
-   eslint 9.11.1
-   eslint-plugin-import 2.30.0
-   eslint-plugin-unicorn 55.0.0
-   eslint-plugin-wdio 9.0.8
-   husky 9.1.6
-   jsdom 25.0.1
-   pnpm-run-all2 6.2.3
-   release-it 17.6.0
-   rimraf 6.0.1
-   saucelabs 8.0.0
-   ts-node 10.9.2
-   typescript 5.6.2
-   vitest 2.1.2
-   webdriverio 9.1.2

. prepare$ husky
└─ Done in 204ms
Done in 9.5s
All packages updated!

Questions

Please join our Discord Server if you have any questions or issues contributing to this project. Catch us contributors in the 🙏-contributing channel.

Issues

If you have questions, bugs or feature requests, please file an issue. Before submitting an issue, please search the issue archive to help reduce duplicates, and read the FAQ.

If you can't find it there you can submit an issue where you can submit:

• 🐛Bug report: Create a report to help us improve
• 📖Documentation: Suggest improvements or report missing/unclear documentation.
• 💡Feature request: Suggest an idea for this module.
• 💬Question: Ask questions.

Development Workflow

To create a PR for this project and start contributing follow this step-by-step guide:

• Fork the project.

• Clone the project somewhere on your computer

  $ git clone https://github.com/webdriverio/visual-testing.git

• Go to the directory and setup the project

  $ cd visual-testing
  $ corepack enable
  $ pnpm pnpm.install.workaround

• Run the watch mode that will automatically transpile the code

  $ pnpm watch

  to build the project, run:

  $ pnpm build

• Ensure that your changes don't break any tests, run:

  $ pnpm test

This project uses changesets to automatically create changelogs and releases.

Testing

Several tests need to be executed to be able to test the module. When adding a PR all tests must at least pass the local tests. Each PR is automatically tested against Sauce Labs, see our GitHub Actions pipeline. Before approving a PR the core contributors will test the PR against emulators/simulators / real devices.

Local Testing

First, a local baseline needs to be created. This can be done with:

// With the webdriver protocol
$ pnpm run test.local.init

This command will create a folder called localBaseline that will hold all the baseline images.

Then run:

// With the webdriver protocol
pnpm run test.local.desktop

This will run all tests on a local machine on Chrome.

Local Storybook Runner Testing (Beta)

First, a local baseline needs to be created. This can be done with:

pnpm run test.local.desktop.storybook

This will Storybook tests with Chrome in headless mode against a Demo Storybook repo located at https://govuk-react.github.io/govuk-react/.

To run the tests with more browsers you can run

pnpm run test.local.desktop.storybook -- --browsers=chrome,firefox,edge,safari

[!NOTE] Make sure you have the browsers you want to run on installed on your local machine

CI testing with Sauce Labs (not needed for a PR)

The command below is used to test the build on GitHub Actions, it can only be used there and not for local development.

$ pnpm run test.saucelabs

It will test against a lot of configurations that can be found here. All PRs are automatically checked against Sauce Labs.

Releasing

To release a version of any of the packages listed above, do the following:

• trigger the release pipeline
• a release PR is generated, have this be reviewed and approved by another WebdriverIO member
• merge the PR
• trigger the release pipeline again
• a new version should be released 🎉

Credits

@wdio/visual-testing uses an open-source license from LambdaTest and Sauce Labs.