Show HN: Droideer – Puppeteer-like API for Android app automation and scraping

4 hours ago 2

Puppeteer-like API for Android automation - Control Android devices with familiar web automation syntax for testing, scraping, and automation

⚠️ Work In Progress: This repository is currently under active development. Features and APIs may change. Emulator support is in testing phase.

Droideer brings the beloved Puppeteer API to Android automation. Whether you're testing apps, scraping mobile data, or automating workflows, if you've ever automated web browsers, you'll feel right at home automating Android apps!

Perfect for:

🧪 End-to-end testing of Android applications
📊 Data scraping from mobile apps and services
🤖 Workflow automation and repetitive task automation
🔍 App behavior analysis and reverse engineering
📱 Cross-platform testing across different Android devices

🔧 Android DevTools Companion

Note: For a visual UI inspector and debugging experience similar to Chrome DevTools, check out our companion repository: Droideer Inspection Tools 🛠️

🎯 Puppeteer-like API - Familiar syntax for web developers
🔍 Smart Element Finding - Multiple selector strategies (text, ID, class, contains)
📱 Real Device Control - Direct ADB integration for authentic interactions
🤹 Rich Gestures - Tap, swipe, scroll, long press, drag & drop
⏰ Auto-waiting - Built-in waits for UI stability and element appearance

📸 Screenshot Support - Visual debugging and test verification
🔄 App Management - Launch, close, and manage Android applications
🧩 Element Properties - Access all element attributes and properties
📋 UI Hierarchy Inspection - Comprehensive element tree analysis

🌐 Network Monitoring - Track HTTP requests and API calls during automation
🎯 Domain-Specific Filtering - Monitor only relevant network traffic
📊 Response Capture - Extract JSON responses and API data
🔧 Reverse Engineering - Analyze app behavior and API endpoints

📱 Mobile App Scraping - Extract data from native Android applications
🔄 Infinite Scroll Handling - Automatically handle pagination and lazy loading
📊 Structured Data Extraction - Extract listings, properties, products, and more
🎯 Element-Specific Targeting - Precise data extraction using resource IDs and selectors
💾 Export Support - Save scraped data in JSON, CSV, or custom formats

ADB (Android Debug Bridge) installed and in your PATH
Android device with USB debugging enabled or an emulator
Node.js 16 or higher

Note: Emulator support is currently in testing phase. Physical devices are recommended for production use.

Some Examples can be checked in the Examples folder.

import { Droideer } from 'droideer'; // Connect to device const device = await Droideer.connect(); const page = await device.launch('com.android.settings'); // Interact with UI await page.click({ text: 'Network & internet' }); await page.waitForSelector({ text: 'Wi-Fi' }); await page.screenshot('wifi-settings.png'); await device.disconnect();

import { Droideer } from 'droideer'; const device = await Droideer.connect(); const page = await device.launch('com.example.marketplace'); // Navigate to search await page.click({ resourceId: 'search_button' }); await page.type({ resourceId: 'search_input' }, 'smartphones'); await page.pressKey(66); // Enter // Scrape product listings with infinite scroll const products = []; let scrollCount = 0; const maxScrolls = 20; while (scrollCount < maxScrolls) { // Extract current page products const productElements = await page.$$({ resourceId: 'product_item' }); for (const element of productElements) { const title = await element.getText(); const price = await page.getText({ resourceId: 'product_price' }); products.push({ title, price }); } // Scroll for more products await page.scroll('down'); await page.waitForTimeout(2000); scrollCount++; // Check if we've reached the end const noMoreItems = await page.$({ text: 'No more items' }); if (noMoreItems) break; } console.log(`Scraped ${products.length} products`);

import { Droideer } from 'droideer'; const device = await Droideer.connect(); // Monitor network activity during app usage const networkResults = await device.networkMonitor.monitorAction(async () => { const page = await device.launch('com.booking'); await page.click({ text: 'Search' }); await page.type({ resourceId: 'destination' }, 'Paris'); await page.click({ text: 'Search hotels' }); // Wait for API calls to complete await page.waitForTimeout(5000); }, { targetDomains: ['booking.com', 'api.booking'], // Only monitor Booking APIs captureResponses: true }); console.log(`Captured ${networkResults.summary.totalRequests} network requests`); console.log('API Endpoints:', networkResults.data.apiEndpoints);

The AndroidDevice class represents a connected Android device.

// Connect to a device const device = await Droideer.connect(); // Launch an app const page = await device.launch('com.android.settings'); // Take a screenshot await device.screenshot('device.png'); // Press hardware buttons await device.back(); await device.home(); // Disconnect when done await device.disconnect();

The Page class represents the current UI view of an Android app.

// Find elements const element = await page.$({ text: 'Settings' }); const elements = await page.$$({ className: 'android.widget.Button' }); // Convenience methods const button = await page.findByResourceId('submit_button'); const textElement = await page.findByText('Welcome'); // Interact with UI await page.click({ text: 'Next' }); await page.type({ resourceId: 'username_field' }, 'john_doe'); await page.scroll('down', 500); // Wait for elements or conditions await page.waitForSelector({ text: 'Welcome' }); await page.waitForNavigation();

The AndroidElement class represents a UI element on the screen.

// Get element properties const text = element.text; const resourceId = element.resourceId; const isEnabled = element.isEnabled; // Interact with element await element.click(); await element.type('Hello world'); await element.longPress(); await element.swipeLeft();

Droideer supports multiple selector strategies for finding elements:

// By text await page.$({ text: 'Login' }); // By partial text await page.$({ contains: 'Log' }); // By resource ID await page.$({ resourceId: 'com.example.app:id/username' }); // By class name await page.$({ className: 'android.widget.EditText' }); // By content description await page.$({ contentDesc: 'Profile picture' }); // Combined selectors await page.$({ className: 'android.widget.Button', text: 'Login', clickable: true }); // XPath-like selectors await page.$x('//android.widget.Button[@text="Submit"]');

// Start monitoring await device.networkMonitor.startMonitoring({ targetDomains: ['api.example.com'], captureResponses: true }); // Perform actions... // Stop and get results const results = await device.networkMonitor.stopMonitoring();

import { test, expect } from '@playwright/test'; import { Droideer } from 'droideer'; test('user can complete purchase flow', async () => { const device = await Droideer.connect(); const page = await device.launch('com.example.shop'); // Test complete user journey await page.click({ text: 'Shop Now' }); await page.type({ resourceId: 'search' }, 'running shoes'); await page.click({ text: 'Search' }); const firstProduct = await page.$({ resourceId: 'product_item' }); await firstProduct.click(); await page.click({ text: 'Add to Cart' }); await page.click({ resourceId: 'cart_button' }); await page.click({ text: 'Checkout' }); const confirmationText = await page.waitForSelector({ text: 'Order confirmed' }); expect(confirmationText).toBeTruthy(); });

// Scrape real estate listings const device = await Droideer.connect(); const page = await device.launch('com.idealista.android'); const listings = []; let hasMorePages = true; while (hasMorePages) { const propertyElements = await page.$$({ resourceId: 'property_card' }); for (const property of propertyElements) { const title = await property.getText(); const price = await page.getText({ resourceId: 'property_price' }); const location = await page.getText({ resourceId: 'property_location' }); listings.push({ title, price, location }); } // Try to go to next page const nextButton = await page.$({ text: 'Next' }); if (nextButton) { await nextButton.click(); await page.waitForTimeout(3000); } else { hasMorePages = false; } } console.log(`Scraped ${listings.length} property listings`);

3. API Reverse Engineering ( Work in Progress )

// Monitor network traffic to understand app APIs const device = await Droideer.connect(); const apiAnalysis = await device.networkMonitor.monitorAction(async () => { const page = await device.launch('com.airbnb.android'); await page.type({ resourceId: 'search_location' }, 'New York'); await page.click({ text: 'Search' }); await page.waitForTimeout(5000); // Scroll to trigger pagination APIs for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) { await page.scroll('down'); await page.waitForTimeout(2000); } }, { targetDomains: ['airbnb.com'], targetKeywords: ['api', 'search', 'listings'], captureResponses: true }); console.log('Discovered API endpoints:', apiAnalysis.data.apiEndpoints); console.log('JSON responses:', apiAnalysis.data.jsonResponses.length);

Droideer is perfect for end-to-end testing of Android applications.

import { Droideer } from 'droideer'; import { test, expect } from 'your-test-framework'; test('should login successfully', async () => { const device = await Droideer.connect(); const page = await device.launch('com.example.app'); await page.type({ resourceId: 'username' }, 'testuser'); await page.type({ resourceId: 'password' }, 'password123'); await page.click({ text: 'Login' }); const welcomeElement = await page.waitForSelector({ text: 'Welcome' }); expect(welcomeElement).not.toBeNull(); await device.disconnect(); });

This project is currently under active development. Here's what's working and what's planned: