Link crawler tests are automatically generated by mabl when you create a new application. This article explains how to configure settings for the link crawler test, including how to...
- Add a login flow
- Change the link crawler's starting URL
- Turn off the link crawler
- Exclude the link crawler from the plans page
Add a login flow
If the application URL points to a login page, you can add an auto-login flow to automatically log in before crawling links:
- Open the plan details page for "Check all pages for broken links and errors."
- Click on the edit pencil.
- Scroll to the Advanced section.
- Toggle on "Login credentials required."
- Select the mabl credentials required to log into your app.
- Save your settings.
Adding an auto-login flow
Copy with custom login
Auto-login flows do not work if the login requires more than username and password or if the login isn't in English. If auto-login is unable to log into your application, you can create a copy of the link crawler test and add your own custom login flow to it:
- Open the test details page for "Checked all linked pages within the app."
- Click on the Copy with custom login button.
- Select the login flow you want to use instead.
- Click on the Duplicate button.
Copying with a custom login flow
Mabl generates a copy of the link crawler test with your custom login flow. You can run this copy of the link crawler test ad hoc or add it to a plan.
- While running the default link crawler test is free, running a copied link crawler test counts toward your quota of allotted credits.
- The output from copied link crawler tests still counts toward page coverage metrics.
Change the link crawler's starting URL
By default, the link crawler starts crawling links at the application URL. However, you can also configure the link crawler to start crawling links at a different specified URL.
Changing the link crawler's starting URL can be useful if the application URL points to an authentication page, but you still want to crawl your application's links once the login flow is executed.
To change the starting URL, take the following steps:
- Open the plan details page for "Check all pages for broken links and errors."
- Click on the edit pencil.
- Scroll to the Tests section.
- Click on the edit pencil next to the test "Visit all linked pages within the app."
- In the data-driven variables panel, click the Add parameter button.
- Select "Crawler starting URL" as the parameter name.
- Enter the desired starting URL as the value.
- Click the Done button and save your plan settings.
Changing the starting URL
You cannot specify a starting URL with a different domain than your application URL. For example, you cannot set the starting URL to www.google.com if your application URL is www.mabl.com.
The link crawler does not traverse links that do not match the domain of the application URL.
Turn off the link crawler
To turn off the link crawler test for a specific application, open the plan details page for "Check all pages for broken links and errors" for the application that you want to turn off. Then toggle the button to turn off the plan.
To turn off the link crawler test for all applications in your workspace, open the test details page for the "Visit all linked pages within the app" test. Then toggle the button to turn off the test.
You cannot delete the link crawler test. Link crawler tests and plans are system-generated when you create an application and system-deleted when you delete the application.
Exclude the link crawler from the plans page
To filter link crawler plans out of the plans page, set the default plans filter to "Exclude mabl-created plans."
You cannot specify pages to exclude from the link crawler test.
If you want to exclude certain URLs from page coverage metrics, you can configure an exclusion list on the page coverage dashboard. However, this setting does not stop the link crawler from checking those URLs.