What's a browser Target in chrome DevTools protocol?

Question

In the main website of chrome DevTools protocol, there's a section for Target Domain.

In puppeteer library, there's a JS class for that, And it has got just a few methods.

What's Target and What's for?

Answer 1

A target, as described in your question, can be a page, background page, service worker, browser, and more.

In other words, a target is essentially the current frame or environment that is in focus.

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The Chrome DevTools Protocol Documentation describes the Target Domain as:

Target Domain

Supports additional targets discovery and allows to attach to them.

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Puppeteer, a Node.js library which provides a high-level API to control Chrome or Chromium over the DevTools Protocol, has a Target class which is documented as the following:

class: Target

target.browser()

• returns: <Browser>

Get the browser the target belongs to.

target.browserContext()

• returns: <BrowserContext>

The browser context the target belongs to.

target.createCDPSession()

• returns: <Promise<CDPSession>>

Creates a Chrome Devtools Protocol session attached to the target.

target.opener()

• returns: <?Target>

Get the target that opened this target. Top-level targets return null.

target.page()

• returns: <Promise<?Page>>

If the target is not of type "page" or "background_page", returns null.

target.type()

• returns: <string>

Identifies what kind of target this is. Can be "page", "background_page", "service_worker", "browser" or "other".

target.url()

• returns: <string>