Tools

All tools listed here are ✅ Implemented and 🧪 Tested unless noted otherwise. See the Status Glossary for chip definitions.

Observe

Almost all other tool calls have built-in observation via the interaction loop, but we also have a standalone observe tool that specifically performs just that action to get the AI agent up to speed.

Interactions

• 👆 tapOn supports tap, double-tap, long press, and long-press drag actions. Selector strategies include text, elementId, clickable (first clickable element), siblingOfText (clickable sibling of a text element), and tapClickableParent (nearest clickable ancestor of a text match).
• 👉 swipeOn handles directional swipes and scrolling within container bounds.
• ↔️ dragAndDrop for element-to-element moves.
• 🔍 pinchOn for zoom in/out gestures.
• 📳 shake for accelerometer simulation.

App Management

• 📱 Installed apps are exposed via the automobile:apps resource with query filters.
• 🚀 launchApp starts apps by package name (with optional clear-app-data support).
• ❌ terminateApp force-stops an app by package name.
• 📦 installApp installs an APK.
• 📄 putAppFile writes a local file, UTF-8 text, or base64 binary content into logical app containers such as documents, cache, tmp, and externalFiles.
• 🔗 getDeepLinks reads registered deep links/intent filters for an Android package.

Copy a fixture into an app container:

{
  "tool": "putAppFile",
  "params": {
    "appId": "com.example.app",
    "container": "documents",
    "sourcePath": "/Users/me/fixtures/welcome.png",
    "destinationPath": "fixtures/welcome.png",
    "platform": "ios"
  }
}

Write inline configuration without a temporary file:

{
  "tool": "putAppFile",
  "params": {
    "appId": "com.example.app",
    "container": "documents",
    "contentText": "{\"experiments\":{\"newOnboarding\":false}}",
    "destinationPath": "config/experiments.json",
    "platform": "android"
  }
}

After writing, use automobile:devices/{deviceId}/apps/{appId}/files/{container} to list files or automobile:devices/{deviceId}/apps/{appId}/files/{container}/{path} to read one back. Prefer this API over direct adb push, run-as, or simctl get_app_container copy commands.

Android app files support externalFiles through /sdcard/Android/data/{appId}/files. Use this for app-readable fixture files that do not require private app storage:

{
  "tool": "putAppFile",
  "params": {
    "appId": "com.example.app",
    "container": "externalFiles",
    "sourcePath": "/Users/me/fixtures/document.pdf",
    "destinationPath": "fixtures/document.pdf",
    "platform": "android"
  }
}

Android private containers (documents, cache, and tmp) use run-as {appId} and require a debuggable app build. Non-debuggable apps fail with an actionable error instead of reporting a successful write. library is not an Android container; use documents, cache, tmp, or externalFiles.

iOS app files are supported for simulators through xcrun simctl get_app_container {deviceId} {bundleId} data. Logical containers map to the app data container as follows:

Container	iOS path
documents	Documents
library	Library
cache	Library/Caches
tmp	tmp

Use documents for user-visible fixtures, cache for cache-like test data, and tmp for temporary files:

{
  "tool": "putAppFile",
  "params": {
    "appId": "com.example.app",
    "container": "cache",
    "contentBase64": "AAEC/w==",
    "destinationPath": "fixtures/image.bin",
    "platform": "ios"
  }
}

Manual emulator validation for Android:

printf '{"enabled":true}\n' > /tmp/automobile-settings.json
# Call putAppFile with appId=com.example.app, container=externalFiles,
# sourcePath=/tmp/automobile-settings.json, destinationPath=config/settings.json.
adb shell cat /sdcard/Android/data/com.example.app/files/config/settings.json

Manual simulator validation for iOS:

printf 'hello simulator\n' > /tmp/automobile-ios-fixture.txt
# Call putAppFile with appId=com.example.app, container=documents,
# sourcePath=/tmp/automobile-ios-fixture.txt, destinationPath=fixtures/hello.txt.
APP_CONTAINER=$(xcrun simctl get_app_container booted com.example.app data)
cat "$APP_CONTAINER/Documents/fixtures/hello.txt"

Input Methods

• ⌨️ inputText and imeAction for typing and IME actions.
• 🗑️ clearText and selectAllText act on the focused field.
• 🔘 pressButton or pressKey for back/home/recent/power/volume.

Device Configuration

• 🔄 rotate sets portrait or landscape.
• 🌐 openLink launches URLs or deep links.
• 🧰 systemTray, homeScreen, and recentApps control system surfaces.
• 🔔 postNotification posts notifications from the app-under-test when SDK hooks are installed.
• 🌍 changeLocalization sets locale, time zone, text direction, and time format in one call. Android system-wide locale changes require a root-capable device and are verified against the effective system configuration before success is reported.

Navigation & Exploration

• 🗺️ navigateTo navigates to a specific screen using learned paths from the navigation graph.
• 🔍 explore automatically explores the app and builds the navigation graph by intelligently selecting and interacting with UI elements.
• 📊 getNavigationGraph retrieves the current navigation graph for debugging and analysis.

Advanced Device Management

• 📋 Device inventory and pool status are exposed via the automobile:devices/booted resource.
• 🚀 startDevice starts a device with the specified device image.
• ❌ killDevice terminates a running device.
• 🔧 setActiveDevice sets the active device for subsequent operations.

Testing & Debugging

• 🧪 executePlan (daemon mode only) executes a series of tool calls from a YAML plan content, stopping if any step fails.
• 🔒 criticalSection (daemon mode only) coordinates multiple devices at a synchronization barrier for serialized steps.
• 🩺 doctor runs diagnostic checks to verify AutoMobile setup and environment configuration.
• 🐛 bugReport generates a comprehensive bug report including screen state, view hierarchy, logcat, screenshot, and optional highlight metadata.
• 🔍 debugSearch debugs element search operations to understand why elements aren’t found or wrong elements are selected.
• 📸 rawViewHierarchy gets raw view hierarchy data (XML/JSON) without parsing for debugging.
• 🖍️ highlight draws visual overlays to highlight areas of the screen during debugging. 🤖 Android 🍎 iOS
• 🔗 identifyInteractions suggests likely interactions with ready-to-use tool calls (debug-only; enable the debug feature flag).

Network & Connectivity

• setNetworkState — Wi-Fi, cellular, and airplane mode control. ADB commands validated on API 35. ❌ Not Implemented (MCP tool not yet built; see network-state.md)

Accessibility

• setTalkBackEnabled, setA11yFocus, announce — TalkBack simulation and enablement. ADB commands validated. ❌ Not Implemented (MCP tools not yet built; see talkback.md)

Daemon & Session Management

• 📋 Device pool status is exposed via the automobile:devices/booted resource.
• Daemon management and IDE operations are exposed via the Unix Socket API (not MCP tools).