browsingContext.navigationStarted event

The browsingContext.navigationStarted event of the browsingContext module fires when a cross-document navigation begins in a context.

Event data

The params field in the event notification is an object with the following fields:

context

A string that contains the ID of the context in which the navigation is starting.

A string that contains the UUID that uniquely identifies this navigation. If the navigation was started using the browsingContext.navigate or browsingContext.reload command, this ID matches the navigation value in the command's response. The same ID is shared by all events related to this navigation, including other navigation events in the browsingContext module and events in the network module.

timestamp

A non-negative integer that represents the time when the event was fired, as milliseconds elapsed since the epoch.

url

A string that contains the URL being loaded.

Description

The navigation to a different page can be triggered by the browsingContext.navigate or browsingContext.reload command, by user interaction with elements on the page, or by JavaScript running in the page's context.

For cross-document navigations, this is the first in the sequence of navigation events and fires when the browser begins fetching the URL. If the navigation succeeds, browsingContext.navigationCommitted fires next, when the browser has accepted the response and begun loading the new page. After that, browsingContext.domContentLoaded fires when the HTML has been parsed, and browsingContext.load fires last when the document and all its subresources have finished loading. If the navigation fails, browsingContext.navigationFailed fires instead.

Note: This event is not emitted when the initial about:blank page is loaded for a new top-level browsing context.

This event does not fire for same-document navigations. For navigations to a URL fragment, see browsingContext.fragmentNavigated. For URL changes made through the History API without a full navigation, see browsingContext.historyUpdated.

Examples

Receiving an event when a cross-document navigation starts

Assume you have a WebDriver BiDi connection and an active session with a subscription to browsingContext.navigationStarted.

Suppose you use browsingContext.navigate to load https://example.com, passing the context ID you obtained from browsingContext.getTree.

The browser sends the following notification, where the context value matches the context ID you passed to browsingContext.navigate:

json
{
  "type": "event",
  "method": "browsingContext.navigationStarted",
  "params": {
    "context": "5e5e96e8-5247-4f22-9b35-a4a2d841cbaa",
    "navigation": "a1b2c3d4-5678-90ab-cdef-1234567890ab",
    "timestamp": 1781646423959,
    "url": "https://example.com"
  }
}

Specifications

Specification
WebDriver BiDi
# event-browsingContext-navigationStarted

Browser compatibility

See also