M$ Edge in Selenium Grid

This article is a list of Selenium Grid node configuration hacks that allow to use M$ Edge as a part of a Selenium Grid. It is not a complete step-by-step guide: it assumes that the reader is generally familiar with Selenium Grid configuration and concepts. It also assumes some basic knowledge of Windows-10 operating system.
The below described hacks were tested on versions 3.4.0 and 3.5.0 of Selenium and build 15063 of Edge.

The essence:

Unlike FF, IE or Chrome, Edge is not a part of default node configuration. Therefore, a custom node config that specifies it, must be used as described in my post on SO.
Edge driver supports only one concurrent session, so maxInstances must be set to 1. (source, also credits to this post)
Edge driver sometimes does not play well with other browser drivers on the same node. Therefore if you followed all other points from this list and it still doesn't work then try to create a node containing only Edge. It is still possible to run other browsers in a separate node on the same machine using different port. (credits to this post)
Edge must be running in the foreground, so that its window can be actually displayed on the desktop. Therefore the node cannot be started as a Windows Service nor from Windows Task Scheduler at startup. The best way to automate starting of the node is to configure auto-login and add a batch script starting the node to user's Startup Programs.
The build number of the driver must match the build number of the browser as described on driver's website.

Node config:

Putting the first 3 points together, the config for an Edge node should look similar to the below:

{
  "capabilities": [
    {
      "browserName": "MicrosoftEdge",
      "platform": "WIN10",
      "maxInstances": 1
    }
  ],
  "hub": "https://selenium-hub-host:4444"
}

...plus of course any other options (timeouts, etc) that you need to set for your specific purposes.

If it works fine and you feel brave then you may try to add other browsers also: sometimes it works ok this way and you don't need to have 2 separate nodes on the same machine.

Automating the start of the node(s):

Configure auto-login:
Here are some articles how to do this: CNET, intowindows.
Add node starting script to user's startup programs:
Create a bat file inside c:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ folder with a content similar to this:
```
java ^
  "-Dwebdriver.edge.driver=c:\path\to\MicrosoftWebDriver.exe" ^
  -jar "c:\path\to\selenium-server-standalone.jar" ^
  -role node -nodeConfig "c:\path\to\nodeConfig.json" ^
  >c:\path\to\file\where\you\want\to\keep\node\logs 2>&1
    
```
If you want to start a separate node for other browsers then in the same folder create a second similar batch script to start it. Remember to change the listening port in one of the nodes.