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plugin-lighthouse

README.md

@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin

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🕵️ Code PushUp plugin for measuring web performance and quality with Lighthouse. 🔥

The plugin parses your Lighthouse configuration and lints all audits of the official Lighthouse CLI.

Detected Lighthouse audits are mapped to Code PushUp audits. Audit reports are calculated based on the original implementation. Additionally, Lighthouse categories are mapped to Code PushUp groups which can make it easier to assemble the categories.

For more infos visit the official docs.

Getting started

  1. If you haven't already, install @code-pushup/cli and create a configuration file.

  2. Install as a dev dependency with your package manager:

    npm install --save-dev @code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin
    yarn add --dev @code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin
    pnpm add --save-dev @code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin

  3. Add this plugin to the plugins array in your Code PushUp CLI config file (e.g. code-pushup.config.ts).

    Pass in the URL you want to measure, along with optional flags and config data.

    import lighthousePlugin from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

export default {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    // ...
    await lighthousePlugin('https://example.com'),
  ],
};

  4. Run the CLI with npx code-pushup collect and view or upload the report (refer to CLI docs).

Multiple URLs

The Lighthouse plugin supports running audits against multiple URLs in a single invocation. To do this, provide an array of URLs as the first argument to the plugin:

import lighthousePlugin from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

export default {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    // ...
    await lighthousePlugin(['https://example.com', 'https://example.com/contact']),
  ],
};

Assigning weights to URLs

You can assign custom weights to URLs by passing an object instead of an array. This is useful when some pages are more important than others (e.g., your homepage vs. a contact page). The keys are URLs, and the values are their weights.

URLs with higher weights contribute more to the overall category scores. For example, a URL with weight 2 has twice the influence of a URL with weight 1.

import lighthousePlugin from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

export default {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    // ...
    await lighthousePlugin({
      'https://example.com': 2,
      'https://example.com/contact': 1,
    })
  ];
};

Flags

The plugin accepts an optional second argument, flags.

flags is a JavaScript object containing Lighthouse CLI flags.

Within the flags object, external configuration files can be referenced using options like configPath , preset, or budgetPath. These options allow Lighthouse to load custom configurations, audit presets, or performance budgets from external json or JavaScript files.

For a complete list of available options, refer to the official Lighthouse documentation.

Tip

If you are new to working with the Lighthouse CLI, flags can be passed like this: lighthouse https://example.com --output=json --chromeFlags='--headless=shell'

With the plugin, the configuration would be:

// code-pushup.config.ts
...
lighthousePlugin('https://example.com', {
  output: 'json',
  chromeFlags: ['--headless=shell'],
});

Note

The following flags are not supported in the current implementation:

  • list-all-audits - Prints a list of all available audits and exits. Alternative: npx code-pushup print-config --onlyPlugins lighthouse
  • list-locales - Prints a list of all supported locales and exits.
  • list-trace-categories - Prints a list of all required trace categories and exits.
  • view - Open HTML report in your browser

Chrome Flags for Tooling

We recommend using Chrome flags for more stable runs in a tooling environment. The chrome-launcher package offers a well-documented set of flags specifically designed to ensure reliable execution.

The latest version of @code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin provides DEFAULT_CHROME_FLAGS, a pre-configured constant that includes Chrome’s default flags for stable, headless execution out of the box. This means you do not need to specify chromeFlags manually unless you want to modify them.

Default Usage

If no chromeFlags are provided, the plugin automatically applies the default configuration:

import lighthousePlugin from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

lighthousePlugin('https://example.com', {
  output: 'json',
  // Defaults to DEFAULT_CHROME_FLAGS internally
});

Adding Extra Flags

If additional Chrome flags are required (e.g., verbose logging or debugging), they can be appended to the default flags:

import lighthousePlugin, { DEFAULT_CHROME_FLAGS } from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

lighthousePlugin('https://example.com', {
  output: 'json',
  chromeFlags: DEFAULT_CHROME_FLAGS.concat(['--verbose']),
});

Overriding Default Flags

To completely override the default flags and provide a custom configuration:

import lighthousePlugin from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

lighthousePlugin('https://example.com', {
  output: 'json',
  chromeFlags: ['--verbose'],
});

Config

The plugin accepts a third optional argument, config.

config is the Lighthouse configuration as a JS object.

For a complete guide on Lighthouse configuration read the official documentation on configuring

Tip

If you are not used to work with the Lighthouse CLI you would pass a config like this: lighthouse --config-path=path/to/custom-config.js https://example.com

And in a separate file you would place the following object:

// custom-config.js file
export default {
  extends: 'lighthouse:default',
  settings: {
    onlyAudits: ['first-meaningful-paint', 'speed-index', 'interactive'],
  },
};

Now with the plugin it would look like this:

// code-pushup.config.ts
...
lighthousePlugin('https://example.com', undefined, {
  extends: 'lighthouse:default',
  settings: {
    onlyAudits: [
      'first-meaningful-paint',
      'speed-index',
      'interactive',
     ],
 }
})

Category integration

The plugin provides helpers to integrate Lighthouse results into your categories.

Building categories with ref helpers

Use lighthouseGroupRefs and lighthouseAuditRefs to build categories. These helpers automatically handle multi-URL expansion:

import lighthousePlugin, { lighthouseGroupRefs } from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

const lighthouse = await lighthousePlugin('https://example.com');

export default {
  plugins: [lighthouse],
  categories: [
    {
      slug: 'performance',
      title: 'Performance',
      refs: lighthouseGroupRefs(lighthouse, 'performance'),
    },
    {
      slug: 'seo',
      title: 'SEO',
      refs: lighthouseGroupRefs(lighthouse, 'seo'),
    },
  ],
};

For multi-URL setups, refs are automatically expanded for each URL with appropriate weights:

import lighthousePlugin, { lighthouseAuditRefs, lighthouseGroupRefs } from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

const lighthouse = await lighthousePlugin({
  'https://example.com': 2,
  'https://example.com/about': 1,
});

export default {
  plugins: [lighthouse],
  categories: [
    {
      slug: 'performance',
      title: 'Performance',
      refs: lighthouseGroupRefs(lighthouse, 'performance'),
    },
    {
      slug: 'core-web-vitals',
      title: 'Core Web Vitals',
      refs: [...lighthouseAuditRefs(lighthouse, 'largest-contentful-paint', 3), ...lighthouseAuditRefs(lighthouse, 'cumulative-layout-shift', 2), ...lighthouseAuditRefs(lighthouse, 'first-contentful-paint', 1)],
    },
  ],
};

Get all groups

Call lighthouseGroupRefs without a slug to get refs for all Lighthouse groups:

import lighthousePlugin, { lighthouseGroupRefs } from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

const lighthouse = await lighthousePlugin('https://example.com');

export default {
  plugins: [lighthouse],
  categories: [
    {
      slug: 'lighthouse',
      title: 'Lighthouse',
      refs: lighthouseGroupRefs(lighthouse), // all groups
    },
  ],
};

Helper functions

Function Description
lighthouseGroupRefs Creates category refs to Lighthouse group(s), handles multi-URL
lighthouseAuditRefs Creates category refs to Lighthouse audit(s), handles multi-URL

Note

Referencing individual audits offers more granularity but increases maintenance costs. Use npx code-pushup print-config --onlyPlugins=lighthouse to list all available audits and groups.

Tip

Weights determine each ref's influence on the category score. Use weight 0 to include a ref as info only, without affecting the score.

Type safety

The LighthouseGroupSlug type is exported for discovering valid group slugs:

import type { LighthouseGroupSlug } from '@code-pushup/lighthouse-plugin';

const group: LighthouseGroupSlug = 'performance';

Deprecated helpers

The following helpers are deprecated and will be removed in a future version:

Function Replacement
lighthouseCategories Build categories manually with lighthouseGroupRefs
lighthouseGroupRef Use lighthouseGroupRefs (plural) for multi-URL support
lighthouseAuditRef Use lighthouseAuditRefs (plural) for multi-URL support

If you want to contribute, please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md.