Glossary
Short explanations of the words used across the Droidline docs, from accessibility service and selector to relay, route and token.
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Accessibility service | An Android feature that lets an app read what is on the screen and act on it, made for people who use screen readers or switches. Droidline's app uses it to see elements and to tap, swipe and type. |
| Activity | One screen of an Android app, such as .LoginActivity. current() returns the package and the activity in front. |
| Agent | The Droidline app on the phone. It connects to the server and carries out commands. |
| Batch | A list of commands the phone runs by itself in one go, used when the phone will be offline in between, such as switching airplane mode off and on. See Concepts. |
| Bounds | Where an element is on the screen, as [left, top, right, bottom] in pixels. |
| Client | Your side: a script, the CLI, an HTTP request or an AI agent that sends commands to the server. |
| Condition | A command that asks a question and answers at once without failing, such as exists, checked or get_text. |
| Desc | An element's content description, written for screen readers. Icon buttons often have only this. |
| Device ID | A random identifier the server gives a phone when it pairs, such as k7d2q9xa. Phones also have a name you choose. |
| Dump | The screen as a tree of elements, returned by dump(). The starting point for choosing selectors. |
| Element | One thing on the screen in the dump: a button, a text, a field, a list row. |
| Error code | A short name for a failure, such as NOT_FOUND, the same in every interface. See Error codes. |
| IME | Input method editor, Android's name for a keyboard app. Droidline ships its own, the Droidline keyboard. |
| MCP | Model Context Protocol, the standard way AI assistants use tools. droidline mcp makes Droidline one of those tools. See AI agents. |
| nth | Which element to use when several match, counting from 0. |
| Package name | The unique name of an Android app, such as com.android.chrome. droidline apps lists them. |
| Pairing | Introducing a phone and a PC to each other once, with a QR code or a 6-digit code. They exchange keys and recognize each other from then on. |
| Relay | A small server you run on the internet that passes encrypted lines between your PC and phones on mobile data. See Remote phones. |
| Resource ID | The id field: a name an app's developer gave an element, such as com.example:id/login. Stable across languages. |
| Route | How a phone reaches the PC: lan (same Wi-Fi), direct (a forwarded port), tunnel, or relay. |
| SDK | The library for a programming language: droidline on PyPI for Python, droidline on npm for Node.js. |
| Selector | A field and a value that pick an element, such as ("text", "Log in") or ("id", "email"). |
| Server | droidline serve, the program on your PC that connects your code to your phones. |
| Timeout | How long a command waits for its element before failing, 10 seconds unless you change it. |
| Token | A secret string (dlc_...) that lets a client on another machine use the server. Created with droidline token create. |
| Tunnel | A service such as Cloudflare Tunnel or ngrok that gives your PC a public address, so phones on mobile data can reach it. |
| via | The field in a reply that says how a tap or a typed text was delivered: node, parent, gesture, set_text or ime. |