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Overview

Background daemon service for device pooling and parallel test execution. The AutoMobile daemon:

  1. Maintains a pool of available devices specifically for running tests
  2. Allocates devices to test sessions on demand
  3. Tracks test execution history and performance to automatically optimize test distribution
  4. Provides session management APIs

Architecture

With Android in mind, JUnitRunner uses the MCP Daemon to orchestrate and control N devices under test. The daemon is a long-lived Node process with the same MCP capabilities, so it can replay the same interactions an AI agent would run. This architecture also enables multi-device features like critical section.

stateDiagram-v2
    JUnitRunner: JUnitRunner
    Daemon: MCP Daemon
    Device1: Device 1
    Device2: Device 2
    DeviceDots: Device ...
    DeviceN: Device N
    InteractionLoop: Interaction Loop

    JUnitRunner --> Daemon
    Daemon --> JUnitRunner
    Daemon --> DeviceSessionManager
    InteractionLoop --> Daemon: 🖼️ Processed Results 
    DeviceSessionManager --> InteractionLoop: 📱

    InteractionLoop --> Device1
    InteractionLoop --> Device2
    InteractionLoop --> DeviceDots
    InteractionLoop --> DeviceN

Socket Communication

The daemon listens on a Unix socket at: 

/tmp/auto-mobile-daemon-<uid>.sock

Socket Methods

listDevices

List connected devices; when the daemon is active, responses include poolStatus with pool counts.

Daemon management operations are available via the unix socket interface:

daemon/availableDevices

Query available devices in the pool.

daemon/refreshDevices

Refresh the device pool by discovering connected devices.

daemon/sessionInfo

Get information about an active session.

daemon/releaseSession

Release a session and return device to pool.

Implementation

The daemon is implemented in the main AutoMobile MCP server and can run:

  • Standalone - As a background service
  • Embedded - Within the MCP server process
  • CI Mode - Temporary pools for CI environments

See MCP Server for integration details.