Tauri v2 — WebDriver End-to-End Testing

WebDriver drives the real shipped binary. Unlike mockIPC (see [[tauri-debug-test-mock-ipc]]) the Rust process is running for real and the test interacts through the platform’s native WebDriver server.

See [[tauri-debug-test]] for the top-level testing/debugging landscape.

What tauri-driver actually is

A cross-platform proxy. Real WebDriver clients (Selenium, WebdriverIO) talk to tauri-driver on 127.0.0.1:4444; tauri-driver forwards to:

• Linux: WebKitWebDriver (WebKitGTK).
• Windows: msedgedriver.exe (Edge / WebView2).
• macOS desktop: unsupported — Apple ships no WKWebView driver. Run e2e on Linux CI; smoke macOS builds by hand.
• iOS / Android: via Appium 2, not streamlined.

Install/update:

cargo install tauri-driver --locked

Platform prerequisites

Linux

sudo apt-get install -y libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev webkit2gtk-driver xvfb
which WebKitWebDriver   # must resolve

xvfb-run yarn test creates a fake X display so the app can render headlessly without code changes.

Windows

The Edge driver version must exactly match the Edge build on the machine (checks via edge://version). Mismatch → the test hangs forever on session start. Automate via msedgedriver-tool:

cargo install --git https://github.com/chippers/msedgedriver-tool
& "$HOME/.cargo/bin/msedgedriver-tool.exe"
# Put $PWD on $PATH so tauri-driver picks up the new msedgedriver.exe.

Override the lookup path with tauri-driver --native-driver "<path>".

macOS

Don’t try. There is no WKWebView WebDriver. Use mock-ipc unit tests for logic and a manual checklist for visuals. Track upstream https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri/issues if you need this.

WebdriverIO setup (recommended)

wdio.conf.ts lives in e2e-tests/. The core moving parts:

capabilities: [{ 'tauri:options': { application: '../src-tauri/target/debug/tauri-app' } }],
host: '127.0.0.1',
port: 4444,

Build the binary once in onPrepare (tauri build --debug --no-bundle — skip installer creation, keep symbols), spawn tauri-driver in beforeSession, kill it in afterSession and on every shutdown signal so a Ctrl-C from a flaky test doesn’t leak a 4444-bound process.

Full template: templates/wdio.conf.ts.

Selenium variant

Same shape, no test framework included. You drive the lifecycle from Mocha’s before() / after() and build the capabilities object by hand:

const caps = new Capabilities()
caps.set('tauri:options', { application })
caps.setBrowserName('wry')
driver = await new Builder().withCapabilities(caps).usingServer('http://127.0.0.1:4444/').build()

Use Selenium only if you need Python/Java clients or have an existing suite. WebdriverIO is friendlier and the official examples target it.

Spec / page-object patterns

Specs use the WebdriverIO $/$$ selectors and assertion helpers (expect-webdriverio):

const header = await $('body > h1')
expect(await header.getText()).toMatch(/^hello/i)

For anything beyond a handful of selectors, wrap in a page object:

class SettingsPage {
  get apiKeyInput() { return $('[data-test="api-key"]') }
  async save() { await $('[data-test="save"]').click() }
}

This pays off the moment a CSS refactor moves selectors.

Screenshots on failure

Add to wdio.conf.ts:

afterTest: async (test, _ctx, { passed }) => {
  if (!passed) await browser.saveScreenshot(`./screenshots/${test.title}.png`)
}

Critical on CI — without it, “intermittent failure on ubuntu-latest” is unfixable.

CI matrix

Minimal GitHub Actions (full file in templates/github-actions-e2e.yml):

• ubuntu-latest — apt-get the gtk + xvfb deps, xvfb-run yarn test.
• windows-latest — msedgedriver-tool, then plain yarn test.
• macos-latest — skip or restrict to non-WebView jobs.

Always cargo install tauri-driver --locked after the Rust toolchain step; cache the cargo registry with Swatinem/rust-cache@v2 for ~minute-saving rebuilds.

Templates

• templates/wdio.conf.ts — full WebdriverIO config with tauri-driver lifecycle + screenshot-on-fail.
• templates/example.e2e.ts — sample spec with selectors + page object.
• templates/github-actions-e2e.yml — Linux+Windows matrix.

Anti-patterns

• cargo install tauri-driver without --locked. Picks up incompatible deps; lock to the published Cargo.lock.
• Forgetting to wait on hydration. SPAs render after IPC roundtrips finish — await browser.waitUntil(() => $('...').isExisting()) instead of browser.pause(500).
• Reusing dev binaries built on a different Rust toolchain. CI must build fresh in onPrepare; do not cache target/debug/<app> across jobs.
• Hard-coding ~/.cargo/bin/tauri-driver on Windows. Use the path the CI runner gives you (process.env.USERPROFILE); the Selenium/WDIO template uses os.homedir().