The Dashboard

Live mode opens the DevTools UI in an external browser window and streams your test run in real time. It's the interactive counterpart to Trace Mode, which skips the UI and writes a portable offline artifact instead. Live mode is enabled by default (mode: 'live'), so simply running your WebdriverIO tests launches the dashboard.

When you run your tests, the DevTools UI automatically opens in an external browser window and tests begin executing immediately with real-time visualization. After the initial run completes, use the play buttons to rerun individual tests or suites, and the stop button to terminate running tests at any time.

What the dashboard shows

• Live browser preview — watch the browser under test as commands execute.
• Test progress — suites and tests update as they run.
• Command execution — each action streams in as it happens.
• Workbench tabs — explore Actions, Console, Network, Metadata, and Source for the selected test.

Live-mode features

• Interactive Test Rerunning & Visualization — Real-time browser previews with test rerunning
• Preserve & Rerun (Compare) — Snapshot a failing test, rerun it, and diff the two runs side-by-side
• Console Logs — Capture and inspect browser console output
• Network Logs — Monitor API calls and network activity
• Metadata — Session capabilities, environment, and timing per browser session
• TestLens — Navigate to source code with intelligent code navigation
• Multi-Framework Support — Works with Mocha, Jasmine, and Cucumber
• Session Screencast — Automatic video recording of browser sessions

Configuring the dashboard window

The port, hostname, and devtoolsCapabilities options control the DevTools UI server and the window it opens in. See the Configuration Reference for details.

Running the backend on its own

The adapters start the dashboard server in-process, so you normally never touch it. It also ships as a standalone binary, which is what you want when the dashboard should outlive a single run - or when the tests are not JavaScript, as with the Python adapter (see the Selenium page).

npx @wdio/devtools-backend

Usage: devtools-backend [options]

Options:
  --port <number>     Preferred port; a free one is chosen if it is taken
  --hostname <host>   Host to bind (default: localhost)
  -h, --help          Show this message

--port is a preference, not a promise: if that port is taken the server binds a free one instead of failing. It prints the port it actually bound, which is the line to read rather than the one you asked for:

devtools-backend listening at http://localhost:3000

Point a run at an already-listening server with DEVTOOLS_PORT (every adapter honours it), and the run will attach instead of starting a second one.

A second binary, show-trace, opens a trace archive in the offline player - see Trace Player.