Real Device Testing and AI Test Authoring in Your IDE

Imagine you’re mid-fix on a device-specific bug. You open a browser tab, find an available device, wait for it to spin up, run the test, then squint at a screen nowhere near your code. By the time you close the tab, your train of thought is gone. 

Research on task interruptions puts a number on that feeling: Recovering from a single context switch takes an average of 25 minutes, and it repeats every test cycle. 

Test authoring faces a similar challenge. Engineering-led teams want generated tests to land straight in their repository and flow through their existing CI/CD pipeline, not sit in a separate interface they have to manage on their own. 

Real devices and AI-generated tests, without leaving the editor

Sauce Labs’ native IDE plugins for VS Code and IntelliJ IDEA are built on our Real Device Access API. The VS Code plugin is live on the Visual Studio Marketplace as well as the Open VSX Registry, allowing us to reach users on VS Code as well as popular forks like Cursor and Windsurf. Real Device Cloud integrates seamlessly with editors like Android Studio, PyCharm, WebStorm, and Rider, the editor of choice for many Unity and Unreal game teams via our IntelliJ plugin on the JetBrains Marketplace.

The Sauce Labs IDE plugins cover two things developers and QA engineers have been asking for:

1. Real Device Cloud, from the sidebar. Browse real devices across all three Sauce Labs data center regions, filter what you need, start a live session, and watch the screen stream into the editor. Tap, swipe, and rotate the same way you would in our web UI, just without the extra tab. Install APK and IPA builds, stream device and Appium logs plus network traffic in real time, and spin up a Sauce-hosted Appium server with automatic connection setup.
2. Sauce AI for Test Authoring, built into the panel. Describe a test in plain English, and the plugin generates code against a live device session in the language and framework your team already uses, whether Java, TypeScript, Python, Espresso, or XCUI. Edit the generated steps, then save straight to your local filesystem for your pipeline.

Given Sauce Labs’ deep history with Selenium and Appium, automating a real device connection from inside the IDE is less a new trick than a natural next step.

Built for the people doing the testing

The mobile app developer chasing a device-specific crash starts a session from the IDE panel and watches the stack trace scroll in alongside their code. Diagnosis takes minutes, not a detour. 

The SDET whose whole workflow already lives in the IDE generates a test, iterates against a live device, executes the test, and pushes the result to their repo, no separate interface required.

The mobile QA engineer clearing a release gate starts sessions on a Galaxy S24, an iPhone 15 Pro, and a Pixel 8 from the sidebar and installs the build on each one before capturing screenshots, with no browser required. 

The automation lead validating a CI change connects locally through the same auto-injected Appium URL the pipeline uses, so a passing local run means something. 

The new hire gets productive on day one: Install the plugin, sign in with existing credentials, and start a live session in the hour. 

Why this is different from opening a browser tab

Competing IDE extensions open a device or a browser preview in a separate tab. Sauce Labs streams the live device screen directly into a panel inside the plugin over WebSocket, with CodeLens detecting Appium driver initialization for one-click connection.

Execution runs on the same Sauce Labs cloud either way. What's different is where the developer is sitting when it happens: right where they were already working. 

Getting started with the Sauce Labs IDE Plugins

Install the plugins, sign in with your existing Sauce Labs credentials, and start your first live session from the sidebar. The browser tab you used to need for real device testing isn't part of the workflow anymore.