[Tracker] WebdriverIO v9 Release

[christian-bromann]

This issue starts document upcoming (possibly breaking changes) in WebdriverIO v9. If you have any concerns about listed changes, please let us know. Also feel free to make suggestions to changes we should make in v9.

• V9 drop support for Node.js 16 #11493
• [💡Feature]: migrate to Node.js native fetch method #11862
• have the webdriver package auto download the driver and deprecate driver services (released in v8.14)
• wont-do remove transpiler choice between Babel and TypeScript and just use Vite if we have to transpile TypeScript
  • remove autoCompileOpts and allow to propagate Vite options
• instead: [💡 Feature]: Replace ts-node with tsx #11878
• make puppeteer-core a peerDep and verify it is installed in getPuppeteer
• [💥 Breaking] Remove the devtools package as it requires a lot of maintenance and has no real value anymore #11860
• [🐛 Bug]: including webdriverio as a ts dep generates a build error regarding puppeteer-core #10726
• [💡 Feature]: validate remote and testrunner options #10953
• [💡 Feature]: Remove all JSONWireProtocol artifacts #11859
• [💡 Feature]: Update all dependencies #11858
• Remove all XXXContaining matchers for v9 expect-webdriverio#1366)
• (webdriverio): merge isDisplayed and isDisplayedWithinViewport #11857

Join the 🙏-contribute channel on Discord if you are interested to join us in this effort.

[gpaciga]

@christian-bromann is there an eta for v9?

[christian-bromann]

no

[ichman]

Hello, as we're using the Devtools in our tests to monitor performance, will there be a way to still use it ?
Thank you

[christian-bromann]

will there be a way to still use it ?

Yes, you will be able to use getPuppeteer to interact with Chrome DevTools.

[erwinheitzman]

Vite uses esbuild under the hood, I feel like we can use esbuild instead of Vite to transpile code. What do you think?

[christian-bromann]

What would be the advantage of using esbuild directly over Vite?

[erwinheitzman]

What would be the advantage of using esbuild directly over Vite?

I don't know what Vite would add that we need and since esbuild would cover our needs I feel like it should be sufficient to use that instead. Perhaps Vite offers features that we need or are very useful for our users but I do not know this so it's not like I think we should definitely do this but I think it's something to consider 👍

[christian-bromann]

My reasoning for choosing Vite over Esbuild were the following:

• Vite comes with a dev server that currently runs our component tests, esbuild is only a compiler and we would have to write all the logic to resolve files, compile them and cache them ourselves
• Vite is much easier to configure than esbuild
• its plugin system is much easier to wrap your head around and there are a lot of Vite plugins that not always work with esbuild only

Do you see Vite adding any cost in maintenance and performance? Overall it enables us to do a lot with almost no code.

[erwinheitzman]

Thank you for sharing that Christian! I have no objection or see any cost and have actually just read that Vite is working on replacing esbuild and rollup with rolldown, a Rust replacement that should achieve the same thing with better performance and minimal to no impact during the switch. Sounds like a nice improvement if we will be using this 👍

[Prabhuraja2015]

WebdriverIO 9 needs to support network intercepting

[christian-bromann]

WebdriverIO 9 needs to support network intercepting

WebdriverIO already supports this in Chrome, see https://webdriver.io/docs/api/browser/mock. We plan to add cross browser support once required primitives are spec'ed out in WebDriver Bidi and landed in browser. That said, this type of feature can be added anytime independant of the upcoming release.

[goosewobbler]

Looking at picking up another one from this list - regarding the puppeteer task (no ticket), is that just adding it as a peerdep, since getPuppeteer already checks for the presence of puppeteer-core?

[christian-bromann]

@goosewobbler that's awesome!

It seems like I already have done this in 220ad32

Would you be interested getting #12300 over the goal line? This essentially tries to rename the devtools service to google lighthouse service and removes all CDP integrations to only provide the lighthouse integration features. Wdyt?

[goosewobbler]

Yes, I can take a look at that one, also considered webdriverio/expect-webdriverio#1366, is that about removing the matchers completely or is it already covered by the deprecations?

[christian-bromann]

also considered webdriverio/expect-webdriverio#1366,

Feel free to pick this up as well, the commands are already deprecated and only need to be removed. We may want to create a @next branch or something like that were we can push these changes for the upcoming major version.