Automator.Chromium (automator v0.1.4)

Low-level Chromium process management.

Spawns a headless Chromium instance and provides the WebSocket debugger URL needed to connect via Automator.Client or Automator.Scraper.

Example

browser = Automator.Chromium.spawn()
# => %Automator.Chromium{chromium: #Port<...>, os_pid: 1234, port: 9222, ws_url: "ws://...", user_data_dir: "/tmp/..."}

# Connect to the browser target
{:ok, client} = Automator.Client.start_link(browser.ws_url)
{:ok, result} = Automator.Client.send_command(client, "Browser.getVersion")

Automator.Chromium.kill(browser)

Browser Flags

Chromium is launched with these flags:

Flag	Value
`--headless`	`new`
`--no-sandbox`	—
`--disable-gpu`	—
`--window-size`	`1920,1080`
`--user-data-dir`	unique temp directory (cleaned up on `kill/1`)
`--remote-debugging-port`	auto-detected (available TCP port)

Each invocation gets a fresh --user-data-dir so concurrent spawns don't contend over the default profile. Without it, Chrome for Testing silently exits on macOS.

When to Use

Use Chromium directly when you want to:

Connect multiple Automator.Client instances to the same browser
Manage the browser lifecycle independently of scraping sessions
Access the browser-level WebSocket target (not a page target)

For most use cases, prefer Automator.Scraper which handles this automatically.

Summary

Functions

kill(chromium)

Kills the Chromium process by OS PID and removes its --user-data-dir.

spawn(opts \\ [])

Spawns a headless Chromium instance on an available port.

Types

t()

@type t() :: %Automator.Chromium{
  chromium: port(),
  os_pid: non_neg_integer(),
  port: :inet.port_number(),
  user_data_dir: String.t() | nil,
  ws_url: String.t()
}

Functions

kill(chromium)

Kills the Chromium process by OS PID and removes its --user-data-dir.

Example

browser = Automator.Chromium.spawn()
Automator.Chromium.kill(browser)

spawn(opts \\ [])

Spawns a headless Chromium instance on an available port.

Launches Chromium with --headless=new, --no-sandbox, --disable-gpu, --window-size=1920,1080, and a unique --user-data-dir under the system temp directory. Finds an available TCP port automatically and sets --remote-debugging-port to it.

Returns an %Automator.Chromium{} struct with :chromium, :os_pid, :port, :ws_url, and :user_data_dir.

Example

browser = Automator.Chromium.spawn()
IO.puts(browser.ws_url)
# => "ws://localhost:9222/devtools/browser/..."