The environment variable, when assigned a value of ‘true’, instructs the Puppeteer installation process to bypass the automatic downloading of the Chromium browser. This is particularly useful in environments where Chromium is already available, such as in continuous integration systems or when using a custom-built browser. For instance, setting `PUPPETEER_SKIP_DOWNLOAD=true` before running `npm install` prevents Puppeteer from attempting to download its bundled version of Chromium.
Employing this environment variable offers several advantages. It reduces network traffic by avoiding redundant downloads of Chromium, speeds up the installation process significantly, and provides greater control over the browser version used with Puppeteer. Historically, it has been instrumental in streamlining automated testing workflows and facilitating deployments in resource-constrained environments. Avoiding the download also helps ensure consistency across different environments by relying on a pre-configured or centrally managed browser instance.
