adbutils (Rust)

Async Rust client for the Android Debug Bridge (adb) server smartsocket protocol. A port of adbutils-python, built to underpin a Rust port of uiautomator2.

Talks to the local adb server (127.0.0.1:5037) directly over the wire protocol; the only time it shells out to an adb binary is start-server.

Usage

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> adbutils::Result<()> {
    let adb = adbutils::adb();                 // 127.0.0.1:5037
    println!("server v{}", adb.server_version().await?);
    for d in adb.device_list().await? {
        println!("{}: {}", d.serial().unwrap(), d.shell("getprop ro.product.model").await?);
        let img = d.screenshot(None, true).await?;
        img.save("shot.png").unwrap();
    }
    Ok(())
}

What's implemented

Transport (conn, client): smartsocket framing (4-hex length + OKAY/FAIL), host:* commands, devices/devices-l, connect/disconnect, wait-for, track-devices (as a Stream), auto start-server.
Device (device): transport switch (incl. host:tport:serial: + discard-8 on adb ≥ 41), shell, shell2 (v1 X4EXIT + v2 5-byte framing), forward, reverse (double-OKAY), create_connection, root, tcpip, framebuffer.
Sync (sync): STAT/LIST/SEND/RECV with little-endian framing; push, pull, pull_dir, read_bytes/read_text, stat, list.
Shell helpers (shell): app_*, battery, brightness, wlan_ip, rotation, window_size, swipe/click/drag, list_packages, dump_hierarchy, and more — same regexes as the Python original.
Screenshot (screenshot): screencap -p → image crate.
Extras: APK install (install + a minimal AXML apk manifest parser), screen recording (screenrecord: scrcpy or device screenrecord), a compact logcat colorizer (pidcat), and an adbutils CLI.

Features

feature	default	pulls in	enables
`image`	✓	`image`	`screenshot`, `framebuffer`
`apk`	✓	`reqwest`, `zip`	`install`, `apk` manifest parse
`screenrecord`	✓	`libc`	`start_recording`
`cli`	✓	`clap`	`adbutils` binary

Disable defaults for a minimal transport-only build: adbutils = { version = "0.1", default-features = false }.

Bundled adb binary

start-server uses (in order): ADBUTILS_ADB_PATH → a binary staged at assets/binaries/adb (adb.exe on Windows), wired up by build.rs → adb on PATH. Drop a platform binary into assets/binaries/ to bundle it.

Testing

Unit/integration tests run against an in-process mock adb server (no device needed) and assert the framing byte-exact: host commands, sync STAT/SEND/RECV, shell v2 frames, tport discard-8, and shell-output parsing.

cargo test
cargo clippy --all-features --all-targets

End-to-end tests against a real device/emulator (screenshot decode, push/pull round-trip, screenrecord, install) are not wired into CI yet — they need connected hardware. The examples/smoke.rs example exercises the live server: