E2E testing via CDP - how to enable remote-debugging-port in production Wails apps?

[jstbing]

I’m currently researching options for E2E testing of a Wails v2 desktop app using Playwright or Selenium, which rely on CDP (Chrome DevTools Protocol) for WebView2 automation.

I understand that Wails uses WebView2 internally, and CDP can be enabled via the --remote-debugging-port=9222 flag. (playwright doc)

However:

1. Setting the WEBVIEW2_ADDITIONAL_BROWSER_ARGUMENTS env variable has no effect when launching the app.
2. Wails dev mode: It looks like the dev mode only starts a frontend dev server — it’s not the same as CDP access to WebView2.

Questions:
• Is there a documented or recommended way to enable CDP (--remote-debugging-port) for Wails production builds?
• Are there plans to support this as a first-class feature for E2E testing?

[bzsome]

我也有这个需求，自动化测试时需要启用参数--remote-debugging-port

I also have this requirement, which is to enable the parameter ‘--remote-debugging-port’ during automated testing

[leaanthony]

Feel free to open a PR to pass flags to webview2 🙏

[bzsome]

可以看到，python语言的webview都是可以指定浏览器启动参数，也可以指定远程调试参数：--remote-debugging-port
As can be seen, webviews in Python language can specify browser startup parameters and remote debugging parameters: --remote-debugging-port

[goosewobbler]

I'm the maintainer of wdio-electron-service, and I'm keen to expand WDIO support for other desktop / cross-platform solutions. We're currently tied to an electron-specific IPC bridge but as of the next major version we will have a CDP-based bridge which should enable extraction of the electron-specific parts of our codebase and support for other solutions. Would be nice to get Wails on board and further improve the experience of E2E testing native / desktop / cross-platform apps.