Android Control MCP Server

A production-ready Model Context Protocol (MCP) server built in Node.js that enables AI assistants (such as Claude Desktop, Cursor, and custom agentic workflows) to observe, reason about, and control connected Android devices.

🌟 Features

• 👀 Computer-Use Observation: High-resolution PNG screen capture returned directly as MCP image blocks alongside device metadata.

• 🔍 UIAutomator Hierarchy Parsing: Intelligent XML dump parser that transforms verbose Android UI trees into compact, structured JSON.

• 🎯 Semantic Element Clicking: Click buttons and controls by their visible text, accessibility description, or resource ID without needing manual pixel calculations.

• ⚡ Fast Gestures & Input: Pixel-accurate tapping, multi-coordinate swiping, directional scrolling, hardware key emulation, and shell-escaped text typing.

• 📱 App Lifecycle Management: Launch applications by package name and inspect the currently focused foreground activity.

• 🛡️ Safety & Sandboxing: Input coordinate validation against actual screen bounds, strict allowlisted keycodes, argument sanitization, command timeouts, and strict stderr logging to guarantee stdio MCP stream integrity.

• 🔄 Multi-Device Support: Auto-detects connected devices or targets specific devices via ANDROID_DEVICE_ID.

Related MCP server: Ultimate Android MCP

🏗️ Architecture

AI Client (Claude Desktop, Cursor, Agent)
   │
   │ stdio transport (JSON-RPC)
   ▼
Node.js MCP Server
   │
   ├── Stderr Structured Logger
   ├── Zod Schema Validation
   │
   ├── ADB Controller Layer
   │   ├── Device Resolver (auto-detect or target serial)
   │   ├── Input Engine (tap, swipe, keyevent, text, scroll)
   │   ├── Screenshot Manager (exec-out binary stream)
   │   └── App Manager (launch, foreground inspection)
   │
   └── UIAutomator Engine
       ├── XML Hierarchy Dump & Normalizer
       ├── Bounds & Center Coordinate Extractor
       └── Semantic Element Finder & Click Resolver
   │
   ▼
Android Device / Emulator

📋 Prerequisites

1. Node.js: v20.0.0 or higher (node -v)

2. Android SDK Platform-Tools: ADB (adb) installed and accessible in your system PATH (or configured via ADB_PATH).

3. Android Device or Emulator:

   • Physical Device: Connect via USB, enable Developer Options and USB Debugging.

   • Emulator: Android Studio AVD, Genymotion, or headless emulator.

Verify Device Connection

adb devices -l

You should see your device listed as device:

List of devices attached
emulator-5554          device product:sdk_gphone64_arm64 model:sdk_gphone64_arm64

🚀 Installation & Quick Start

# Clone or navigate to the repository
cd c:/Users/Abhishek/Code/mcp

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Run unit tests
npm test

# Start the MCP server
npm start

⚙️ Configuration

Create a .env file or pass environment variables:

# Target device ID (serial number). If omitted and 1 device is connected, it auto-selects.
ANDROID_DEVICE_ID=

# Custom path to ADB executable if not in PATH
# Windows: C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools\adb.exe
# macOS: /Users/<user>/Library/Android/sdk/platform-tools/adb
ADB_PATH=adb

# Log level: debug | info | warn | error
LOG_LEVEL=info

# Default ADB timeout in milliseconds
ADB_TIMEOUT_MS=15000

🔌 Connecting to MCP Clients

1. Claude Desktop Configuration

Add the following to your claude_desktop_config.json:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json

• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "android-control": {
      "command": "node",
      "args": ["C:/Users/Abhishek/Code/mcp/src/index.js"],
      "env": {
        "ANDROID_DEVICE_ID": "",
        "ADB_PATH": "adb",
        "LOG_LEVEL": "info"
      }
    }
  }
}

2. Cursor / Windsurf MCP Configuration

In Cursor's Features > MCP Servers or Windsurf settings:

• Name: android-control

• Type: command

• Command: node C:/Users/Abhishek/Code/mcp/src/index.js

🛠️ MCP Tools Reference

1. android_device_info

Get comprehensive device hardware and OS metadata.

• Parameters:

  • deviceId (optional string): Target device serial.

• Example Response:

  {
    "deviceId": "emulator-5554",
    "model": "Pixel 8",
    "manufacturer": "Google",
    "androidVersion": "15",
    "sdk": 35,
    "resolution": {
      "width": 1080,
      "height": 2400
    },
    "connectionState": "connected"
  }

2. android_screenshot

Capture the Android screen as an MCP Image Content Block (image/png).

• Parameters:

  • deviceId (optional string): Target device serial.

• Returns: PNG base64 image data block + dimension metadata.

3. android_ui_dump

Dumps the current screen UIAutomator hierarchy into a compact, AI-friendly JSON format.

• Parameters:

  • deviceId (optional string): Target device serial.

• Example Output:

  {
    "package": "com.android.settings",
    "activity": "com.android.settings.Settings",
    "totalElements": 24,
    "interactiveElementsCount": 8,
    "elements": [
      {
        "index": 0,
        "text": "Network & internet",
        "resourceId": "android:id/title",
        "className": "TextView",
        "clickable": true,
        "bounds": [196, 340, 1016, 400],
        "center": [606, 370]
      }
    ]
  }

4. android_find_element

Search for UI elements matching specific criteria on the current screen.

• Parameters:

  • text (optional string): Visible text (exact or partial).

  • contentDescription (optional string): Accessibility label.

  • resourceId (optional string): Resource ID.

  • className (optional string): Widget class name.

  • clickable (optional boolean): Filter by clickability.

  • exactMatch (optional boolean, default false): Exact string match.

5. android_click_element

Find an element and click its center point in a single step.

• Parameters:

  • text (optional string): Element text.

  • contentDescription (optional string): Element content description.

  • resourceId (optional string): Element resource ID.

  • className (optional string): Element class.

6. android_tap

Tap at exact (x, y) coordinates with screen boundary validation.

• Parameters:

  • x (number): X coordinate.

  • y (number): Y coordinate.

7. android_swipe

Perform a drag / swipe gesture between two points.

• Parameters:

  • x1, y1 (numbers): Start coordinates.

  • x2, y2 (numbers): End coordinates.

  • duration (optional number, default: 300): Duration in milliseconds.

8. android_type_text

Type text into the currently focused input. Handles space encoding (%s) and shell character escaping.

• Parameters:

  • text (string): Text to type.

9. android_press_key

Press a hardware or navigation key.

• Supported Keys: HOME, BACK, ENTER, TAB, ESC, DELETE, SPACE, VOLUME_UP, VOLUME_DOWN, POWER, APP_SWITCH, CAMERA, etc.

• Parameters:

  • key (string): Key name or numeric keycode.

10. android_scroll

Directional scrolling calculated against actual screen dimensions.

• Parameters:

  • direction (string: up | down | left | right)

  • amount (optional number): Scroll distance in pixels.

11. android_launch_app

Launch an application by its package name.

• Parameters:

  • packageName (string): e.g. com.android.settings, com.google.android.youtube.

  • activity (optional string): Specific activity name.

12. android_current_app

Inspect the currently focused foreground package and activity.

13. android_execute_action (Unified Computer-Use Tool)

Single unified action dispatcher supporting all actions: tap, swipe, type, press_key, click_element, scroll, launch_app.

{
  "action": "click_element",
  "text": "Wi-Fi"
}

🤖 Recommended AI Workflow: Observe → Reason → Act → Verify

1. OBSERVE:
   AI calls `android_screenshot` and `android_ui_dump`.

2. REASON:
   AI inspects visual and UI structure to identify target elements.

3. ACT:
   AI calls `android_click_element`, `android_type_text`, or `android_scroll`.

4. VERIFY:
   AI captures another screenshot/dump to confirm desired state change.

🧪 Testing

Run the automated test suite:

npm test

Tests use Vitest and mock the ADB execution layer, allowing full unit verification without requiring a physical Android device attached during CI/CD.

🔒 Security Best Practices

• No Arbitrary Shell Execution: The server does NOT expose raw adb shell execution tools.

• Safe Process Invocation: All commands use child_process.execFile with explicit argument arrays to prevent shell injection.

• Input Sanitization: Package names, keycodes, and coordinate parameters are strictly validated via Zod schemas and bounds checking.

• Stderr Isolated Logging: All logs are directed exclusively to stderr to maintain strict JSON-RPC protocol compliance on stdout.

📄 License

MIT