Implementation:Webdriverio Webdriverio BrowserStack Util

Knowledge Sources	Webdriverio_Webdriverio
Domains	BrowserStack, Utilities
Last Updated	2026-02-12 00:00 GMT

Overview

The BrowserStack Util module provides comprehensive utility functions for capabilities management, git metadata retrieval, accessibility scanning, CI detection, API interactions, and general-purpose helpers used across the entire BrowserStack service.

Description

This large utility module (1901 lines) contains functions organized into several categories: (1) Capability helpers like getBrowserDescription, getBrowserCapabilities, isBrowserstackCapability, and isMultiRemoteCaps for extracting and validating browser capabilities; (2) API functions like launchTestSession and stopBuildUpstream for communicating with BrowserStack's Test Reporting and Analytics API; (3) Git metadata via getGitMetaData using git-repo-info and gitconfiglocal; (4) Accessibility helpers like performA11yScan, getA11yResults, getA11yResultsSummary, and validateCapsWithA11y; (5) CI detection through getCiInfo supporting 20+ CI providers; (6) Error handling wrappers like o11yClassErrorHandler and o11yErrorHandler for wrapping classes/functions with crash reporting; (7) String/object utilities like removeAnsiColors, isUndefined, isTrue, mergeDeep, and generateHashCodeFromFields.

Usage

Import individual functions as needed. These utilities are used by virtually every other module in the BrowserStack service package.

Code Reference

Source Location

Repository: Webdriverio_Webdriverio
File: packages/wdio-browserstack-service/src/util.ts
Lines: 1-1901

Signature

// Capability functions
export function getBrowserDescription(cap: WebdriverIO.Capabilities): string
export function getBrowserCapabilities(browser: WebdriverIO.Browser | WebdriverIO.MultiRemoteBrowser, caps?: Capabilities.ResolvedTestrunnerCapabilities, browserName?: string): WebdriverIO.Capabilities
export function isBrowserstackCapability(cap?: WebdriverIO.Capabilities): boolean
export function isBrowserstackSession(browser?: WebdriverIO.Browser | WebdriverIO.MultiRemoteBrowser): boolean
export function isMultiRemoteCaps(capabilities: Capabilities.TestrunnerCapabilities): boolean

// API functions
export const launchTestSession: (options, config, bsConfig, bStackConfig, accessibilityAutomation) => Promise<LaunchResponse | null>
export const stopBuildUpstream: () => Promise<{ status: string; message: string }>

// Git metadata
export async function getGitMetaData(): Promise<GitMetaData | undefined>

// Accessibility
export const performA11yScan: (isAppAutomate, browser, isBrowserStackSession?, isAccessibility?, commandName?) => Promise<Record<string, unknown> | undefined>
export const getA11yResults: (isAppAutomate, browser, isBrowserStackSession?, isAccessibility?) => Promise<Array<Record<string, unknown>>>
export const getA11yResultsSummary: (isAppAutomate, browser, isBrowserStackSession?, isAccessibility?) => Promise<Record<string, unknown>>

// CI detection
export function getCiInfo(): { name: string; build_url: string | null; job_name: string | null; build_number: string | null } | null

// String utilities
export function removeAnsiColors(message: string): string
export function isUndefined(value: unknown): boolean
export function isTrue(value?: unknown): boolean

// Error handling wrappers
export function o11yClassErrorHandler<T extends ClassType>(errorClass: T): T
export function o11yErrorHandler(fn: Function): Function

Import

import {
    getBrowserDescription,
    getBrowserCapabilities,
    isBrowserstackCapability,
    isBrowserstackSession,
    launchTestSession,
    getGitMetaData,
    performA11yScan,
    getA11yResults,
    removeAnsiColors,
    isMultiRemoteCaps,
    o11yClassErrorHandler,
    getCiInfo
} from './util.js'

I/O Contract

Inputs

Name	Type	Required	Description
cap	`WebdriverIO.Capabilities`	Varies	Browser capabilities for description, validation, or manipulation
browser	WebdriverIO.MultiRemoteBrowser	Varies	Browser instance for session detection and accessibility operations
options	`BrowserstackConfig & Options.Testrunner`	Varies	Service options for API calls and configuration extraction
config	`Options.Testrunner`	Varies	WebdriverIO config for user/key extraction and infrastructure detection

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
Browser description	`string`	Human-readable browser string from capabilities (e.g., "chrome 120 Windows 11")
GitMetaData	`GitMetaData`	Git repository info including sha, branch, remotes, commit message
LaunchResponse	`LaunchResponse`	API response with JWT, build ID, observability/accessibility configs
CI info	null	Detected CI provider info (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, CircleCI, etc.)
A11y results	Record	Accessibility scan results or summary from BrowserStack

Usage Examples

Getting browser description

const caps = getBrowserCapabilities(browser, this._caps, browserName)
const browserString = getBrowserDescription(caps)
// Output: "chrome 120 Windows 11"

Launching a test session

const response = await launchTestSession(
    this._options,
    this._config,
    { projectName, buildName, buildTag, bstackServiceVersion, buildIdentifier },
    this.browserStackConfig,
    this._accessibilityAutomation
)

Detecting CI environment

const ciInfo = getCiInfo()
if (ciInfo !== null && ciInfo.build_number) {
    console.log(`Running on ${ciInfo.name}, build #${ciInfo.build_number}`)
}

Related Pages

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Principle

Implementation

Heuristic

Environment