Nightwatch DevTools

Nightwatch adapter for WebdriverIO DevTools — brings the same visual debugging UI to your Nightwatch test suite with zero test code changes.

Installation

npm install @wdio/nightwatch-devtools

Setup

Standard Nightwatch (mocha-style)

// nightwatch.conf.cjs
const nightwatchDevtools = require('@wdio/nightwatch-devtools').default

module.exports = {
  src_folders: ['tests'],

  test_settings: {
    default: {
      desiredCapabilities: {
        browserName: 'chrome',
        // Required for network request capture
        'goog:loggingPrefs': { performance: 'ALL' }
      },
      globals: nightwatchDevtools({ port: 3000 })
    }
  }
}

Run your tests as normal — the DevTools UI opens automatically in a new browser window:

nightwatch

No changes to your test files are needed.

Cucumber / BDD

Import cucumberHooksPath alongside the main export and pass it to the Cucumber require option. This registers Before / After scenario hooks that mirror the WebdriverIO service's beforeScenario / afterScenario behaviour.

// nightwatch.conf.cjs
const nightwatchDevtools = require('@wdio/nightwatch-devtools').default
const { cucumberHooksPath } = require('@wdio/nightwatch-devtools')

module.exports = {
  src_folders: ['features/step_definitions'],

  test_runner: {
    type: 'cucumber',
    options: {
      feature_path: 'features',
      require: [cucumberHooksPath] // <-- register DevTools Cucumber hooks
    }
  },

  test_settings: {
    default: {
      desiredCapabilities: {
        browserName: 'chrome',
        'goog:loggingPrefs': { performance: 'ALL' }
      },
      globals: nightwatchDevtools({ port: 3000 })
    }
  }
}

Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
port	number	3000	Port for the DevTools backend server. Auto-incremented if already in use.
hostname	string	'localhost'	Hostname the backend server binds to.

globals: nightwatchDevtools({
  port: 3000,
  hostname: 'localhost'
})

Examples

Working examples are included in the package:

Directory	Runner	Command
example/	Nightwatch mocha-style	pnpm example

Build the package first:

# From repo root
pnpm build --filter @wdio/nightwatch-devtools
cd packages/nightwatch-devtools
pnpm example

Features

The Nightwatch adapter provides the same DevTools UI experience:

• Interactive Test Rerunning & Visualization - Real-time browser previews with test rerunning
• Console Logs - Capture and inspect browser console output
• Network Logs - Monitor API calls and network activity
• TestLens - Navigate to source code with intelligent code navigation

Limitations

Nightwatch does not provide the same depth of framework hooks as WebdriverIO, so there are a few differences from the WDIO DevTools service:

Limitation	Detail
No native command hooks	Nightwatch has no beforeCommand / afterCommand hook. Commands are intercepted via a browser proxy wrapper instead.
Limited test context	browser.currentTest provides less metadata than the WDIO runner context; test names and file paths require additional heuristics.
Flat suite nesting	Nightwatch does not natively support multiply-nested describe blocks; the plugin reports a maximum of two levels.
Delayed result availability	Test results are only finalised in afterEach, not available mid-test.

Overall feature parity with the WebdriverIO DevTools service is approximately 80–90%.