Welcome to the wild side of test automation. No fluff, no filler – let’s start where the browser starts: WebDriver options.

You don’t just launch a browser. You tell it how to launch.

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--headless')
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=options)

Think of this as coffee for your browser – wake it up the way you want.

Key Options – When and Why?

  • --headless: Run without GUI. Fast, CI-friendly, and quiet.
  • --disable-gpu: Skip GPU acceleration – avoid weird rendering bugs.
  • --window-size=1920,1080: Control screen size. Critical for responsive UI tests.
  • --no-sandbox: Required in some containerized environments. Use responsibly.
  • --disable-dev-shm-usage: Prevent crashes in environments with limited shared memory.
  • --ignore-certificate-errors: When staging has expired SSLs. Use with caution.
  • --disable-extensions: Clean browser, no funny business.

Do you need all of them?

Nope. Use what makes sense for your test environment. Too many flags = configuration soup.

TL;DR

  • --headless: Default for CI.
  • --window-size: Essential for layout validation.
  • --no-sandbox, --disable-dev-shm-usage: Required for Docker-based test runners.

Next stop: Pytest fixtures – how to stop repeating your setup like a broken record.

See you in part two. 🧪