Setup

Use npm to install Protractor globally with:

npm install -g protractor

This will install two command line tools, protractor and webdriver-manager. Try running protractor --version to make sure it's working.

The webdriver-manager is a helper tool to easily get an instance of a Selenium Server running. Use it to download the necessary binaries with:

webdriver-manager update

Now start up a server with:

webdriver-manager start

This will start up a Selenium Server and will output a bunch of info logs. Your Protractor test will send requests to this server to control a local browser. You can see information about the status of the server at http://localhost:4444/wd/hub.

Write a test

Open a new command line or terminal window and create a clean folder for testing.

Protractor needs two files to run, a spec file and a configuration file.

Let's start with a simple test that navigates to the todo list example in the AngularJS website and adds a new todo item to the list.

Copy the following into todo-spec.js:

describe('angularjs homepage todo list', function() {
  it('should add a todo', function() {
    browser.get('https://angularjs.org');

    element(by.model('todoList.todoText')).sendKeys('write first protractor test');
    element(by.css('[value="add"]')).click();

    var todoList = element.all(by.repeater('todo in todoList.todos'));
    expect(todoList.count()).toEqual(3);
    expect(todoList.get(2).getText()).toEqual('write first protractor test');

    // You wrote your first test, cross it off the list
    todoList.get(2).element(by.css('input')).click();
    var completedAmount = element.all(by.css('.done-true'));
    expect(completedAmount.count()).toEqual(2);
  });
});

The describe and it syntax is from the Jasmine framework. browser is a global created by Protractor, which is used for browser-level commands such as navigation with browser.get.

Configuration

Now create the configuration file. Copy the following into conf.js:

exports.config = {
  seleniumAddress: 'http://localhost:4444/wd/hub',
  specs: ['todo-spec.js']
};

This configuration tells Protractor where your test files (specs) are, and where to talk to your Selenium Server (seleniumAddress). It will use the defaults for all other configuration. Chrome is the default browser.

Run the test

Now run the test with:

protractor conf.js

You should see a Chrome browser window open up and navigate to the todo list in the AngularJS page, then close itself (this should be very fast!). The test output should be 1 test, 3 assertions, 0 failures. Congratulations, you've run your first Protractor test!