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Deploy a Puppeteer App on Leapcell

You can deploy a Puppeteer service on Leapcell to generate screenshots, PDFs, crawl Single Page Apps, or automate testing of your frontend code.

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You’ll need a GitHub account to proceed. If you don’t have one, you can create on the GitHub website.

1. Fork the Puppeteer Boilerplate on GitHub​

Repo: Puppeteer Boilerplate

Here’s a simple Puppeteer script to generate a screenshot of a webpage:

const express = require('express');
const multer = require('multer');
const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

const app = express();
const upload = multer(); // Middleware for parsing form data

// Serve HTML form
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send(`
    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
    <head><title>Website Screenshot</title></head>
    <body>
        <h1>Generate a Screenshot</h1>
        <form action="/screenshot" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
            <input type="text" name="url" placeholder="https://example.com" required>
            <button type="submit">Generate Screenshot</button>
        </form>
    </body>
    </html>
  `);
});

// Handle screenshot generation
app.post('/screenshot', upload.none(), async (req, res) => {
  const url = req.body.url;
  if (!/^https?:\/\/.+$/.test(url)) return res.status(400).send('Invalid URL.');

  try {
    const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.goto(url, { timeout: 60000 });
    const screenshotBuffer = await page.screenshot({ type: 'png' });
    await browser.close();

    // Embed screenshot as base64 in HTML
    res.send(`
      <!DOCTYPE html>
      <html>
      <head><title>Screenshot Result</title></head>
      <body>
          <h1>Screenshot of ${url}</h1>
          <img src="data:image/png;base64,${screenshotBuffer.toString('base64')}" style="max-width:100%;height:auto;">
          <br><a href="/">Back to form</a>
      </body>
      </html>
    `);
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Screenshot error:', error);
    res.status(500).send('Failed to generate screenshot.');
  }
});

// Start server
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 8080;
app.listen(PORT, () => console.log(`Server running on http://localhost:${PORT}`));

2. Create a Service in the Leapcell Dashboard and Connect Your Repo​

Go to the Leapcell Dashboard and click the New Service button.

On the "New Service" page, select the repository you just forked.

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To access your repositories, you’ll need to connect Leapcell to your GitHub account.

Follow these instructions to connect to GitHub.

Once connected, your repositories will appear in the list.

3. Fill in the Following Values During Service Creation​

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Since Puppeteer requires a headless Chromium browser, you need to install dependencies. It’s recommended to run the installation command separately.

Here’s the final installation command:

npm install puppeteer && npm install

For this example, we use an Express app to control Puppeteer operations. The start command is node index.js.

FieldValue
RuntimeNode.js (Any version)
Build Commandnpm install puppeteer && npm install
Start Commandnode index.js
Port8080

Enter these values in the corresponding fields.

4. Access Your App​

Once deployed, you’ll see a URL like foo-bar.leapcell.dev on the Deployment page. Visit the domain to test your application.

Continuous Deployments​

Every push to the linked branch automatically triggers a build and deploy. Failed builds are safely canceled, and the current version remains live until the next successful deployment.

Learn more about Continuous Deployments.