How To Install Robot Framework In Pycharm

PyCharm with Robocorp

You can use the PyCharm IDE to develop robots for the Robocorp automation stack.

Robot Framework Language Server support

The Robot Framework Language Server for PyCharm provides:

Code completion
Code analysis
Go to definition
Browse Keywords (symbols)
Syntax highlighting

Get the plugin from JetBrains Marketplace. Check out the readme in GitHub.

Running and using RCC

We do not have a dedicated plugin available for RCC commands, so some manual bootstrapping is required, which is described in this article.

As a summary, with PyCharm and RCC, you can:

create robots from templates
run robots
upload robots to Control Room

Also, many other advanced features are available with the help of the RCC command-line tool.

Install the tools

Download and install the following:

RCC, Installation instructions here
PyCharm: This tutorial uses PyCharm CE (community edition)

RCC is our command-line-based power tool used internally by our other tools, such as Robocorp Lab.

Verify that you can run rcc version on a newly opened terminal window. If the command doesn't work, make sure it is found in PATH.

Set up the environment

The Robocorp automation stack doesn't require you to install Python, Robot Framework, or other dependencies locally on your machine. Instead, the dependencies are isolated in lightweight virtual environments.

We need to manually create such an environment so that PyCharm can be later configured to use it.

Create a robot project from scratch

                          $ mkdir new-project $ cd new-project $ rcc robot initialize OK.

We now have the following files available:

                          $ ls conda.yaml  output      robot.yaml  tasks.robot

The conda.yaml file describes the dependencies for the project. Make sure you have the initial dependencies in place and then create a virtual environment based on the configuration file:

                          $  rcc environment new conda.yaml ####  Progress: 0/4  [try use existing live same environment?]199ccc60-1f33-b256-ebcf-59efa2d205f4 ####  Progress: 4/4  [Done.] [Stats: 25 environments, 139 requests, 20 merges, 105 hits, 1dirty, 25 misses, 5 failures | v5.0.12] Environment for [conda.yaml] as /Users/thatsme/.robocorp/live78c012d7204dd721e32630c3d0ed065b83e63788e40bf008adf503044ea9b80a409b56 created.

On the last line, we have the newly created virtual environment, which will be used later by PyCharm. Copy the path in your own terminal (it will not be the same as the example above).

Note: If the conda.yaml file is updated, the environment needs to be recreated. See details at Updating project dependencies.

Create a PyCharm project

Open PyCharm and select + New Project.

PyCharm Welcome Screen

In the next dialog, set a name for the project and select ... next to Existing Interpreter to define the project's environment.

PyCharm New Project

We need to tell PyCharm to use the RCC environment that we created earlier on the command line.

We are using bin/Python from that environment path. Additionally, we select conda from the Robocorp configuration directory.

The Python path will have this format (on macOS):

                          /Users/<your-user-name>/.robocorp/live/78c012d7204dd721e32630c3d0ed065b83e63788e40bf008adf503044ea9b80a409b56/bin/python

Conda path is as follows on macOS:

                          /Users/<your-user-name>/.robocorp/miniconda3/bin/conda

PyCharm Add Interpreter

Now, complete the project creation and check that the terminal inside PyCharm points to the right environment. We have Python and other dependencies available as defined by the conda.yaml file.

PyCharm Editor

Create a run configuration

To be able to run the project with RCC, we will create a PyCharm run configuration.

Select Run -> Edit Configurations and add a new configuration with the + button.

PyCharm Add New Configuration

Use type Shell Script and configure rcc task testrun command as follows.

Note that the Interpreter Path is left empty.

PyCharm rcc testrun

Running the robot

After creating the run configuration, you can run the robot project from the Run menu. The test results are available in the testrun folder. You may open the log.html file in an external browser by right-clicking and selecting Open In Browser -> Default.

PyCharm task run complete

Uploading the robot to Control Room

We will create a configuration to upload our robot to Control Room and to run in a cloud container. (Create your free account here: https://robocorp.com/).

On your plain command line, you can run the following commands (this is an option if you don't want to add a PyCharm configuration):

                          # Create credentials at https://cloud.robocorp.com/settings/access-credentials $ rcc configure credentials 849:b40ec2941659cf968bda88ae1ed1... Adding credentials: [849 b40ec2941659cf968bda88ae1...] OK.  # Create new robot at workspace. Find workspace ID in Cloud workspace settings. $ rcc cloud new -r new-project-robot -w ad56bb1a-ea3b-492c-926... Created new robot named 'new-project-robot' with identity 3531.  # Upload robot $ rcc cloud push -r 3531 -w  ad56bb1a-ea3b-492c-926... OK.

We will create a run configuration for this specific robot and workspace. Note: you need to modify this if you want to use some other robot or workspace.

Select Run -> Edit Configurations and add a new Shell Script configuration with the + button.

Similar to the previous test run configuration, we will add the required rcc command.

PyCharm rcc push

We now have a command available to push our changes to Control Room quickly!

PyCharm run configurations

You can follow the same pattern and define your own commands for quick access.

This way, you will have the full power of RCC available on the command line and, at the same time, the nice editing capabilities of PyCharm.

Updating the project dependencies

When project dependencies are updated by editing the conda.yaml file, a new virtual environment must be created.

Create an environment on PyCharm's terminal as follows:

                          $   rcc environment new conda.yaml ####  Progress: 0/4  [try use existing live same environment?] 199ccc60-1f33-b256-ebcf-59efa2d205f4 ####  Progress: 4/4  [Done.] [Stats: 25 environments, 150 requests, 26 merges, 110 hits, 1 dirty, 25 misses, 11 failures | v5.0.12] Environment for [conda.yaml] as /Users/mkaukoranta/.robocorp/live/fec012db304dd721e32630c390ed065b83e637c8e01bf0085df803049aa9bc0a409b56 created.

Add a new interpreter on the bottom right interpreter section:

PyCharm new interpreter

Now configure the Conda-based environment to point to bin/python of the newly created environment. Here we choose "Existing environment" as the environment has been already prepared with RCC:

PyCharm new environment

You can now verify that new terminals in PyCharm open to the newly created environment and contain the correct dependencies according to the conda.yaml file.

June 30, 2021