Appium capabilities for Android

Capabilities tell Appium which device to use and which app to drive. On SpawnDroid the build is already installed on the session device, so the capability set is smaller than a local Appium setup: there is no appium:app and no emulator to start.

The minimum setCopy Anchor Link

Do not set appium:app. The build is already installed on the session device. Setting it makes Appium install the APK again and can fail when the session's storage URL is not reachable from the device.

Optional capabilitiesCopy Anchor Link

Working Java exampleCopy Anchor Link

import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;
import java.net.URL;

DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();
caps.setCapability("platformName", "Android");
caps.setCapability("appium:automationName", "UiAutomator2");
caps.setCapability("appium:udid", System.getenv("SPAWNDROID_UDID"));
caps.setCapability("appium:appPackage", System.getenv("SPAWNDROID_APP_PACKAGE"));
caps.setCapability("appium:autoGrantPermissions", true);

AndroidDriver driver = new AndroidDriver(
    new URL(System.getenv("SPAWNDROID_WD_URL")), caps);
driver.quit();

Working Python exampleCopy Anchor Link

import os
from appium import webdriver
from appium.options.android import UiAutomator2Options

options = UiAutomator2Options().load_capabilities({
    "platformName": "Android",
    "appium:automationName": "UiAutomator2",
    "appium:udid": os.environ["SPAWNDROID_UDID"],
    "appium:appPackage": os.environ["SPAWNDROID_APP_PACKAGE"],
    "appium:autoGrantPermissions": True,
})

driver = webdriver.Remote(os.environ["SPAWNDROID_WD_URL"], options=options)
driver.quit()

The same capability object works in Kotlin and WebdriverIO. See the Python, Java, Kotlin and WebdriverIO guides for complete suites.

Common errorsCopy Anchor Link

• The application is not installed — appium:appPackage does not match the uploaded build. Read app.package from the session response.
• Session not found — the udid belongs to a different session. Use the device.serial returned by that session, not a remembered value.
• Could not find a driver for automationName — the capability is missing or misspelled. It is appium:automationName, not automationName.
• The app opens then closes — a launcher activity mismatch. Set appium:appActivity from the APK manifest.

Generate the blockCopy Anchor Link

The capabilities generator builds the same block for Java, Kotlin, Python and WebdriverIO from the session's URL, serial and package. It runs in the browser.

Run it on SpawnDroidCopy Anchor Link

Start a hosted runner, copy the WebDriver URL and device serial, and paste the capabilities above into your suite. The Hobby plan includes one runner and 200 device-minutes a month, no card. Start free or read CI tests for the full session flow.