Managing Appium

Appium Mobile Testing Management Skill

Manage Appium server infrastructure and analyze mobile test automation.

Core Helper Functions

#!/bin/bash

# Appium server API helper
appium_api() {
    local method="${1:-GET}"
    local endpoint="$2"
    local data="${3:-}"

    if [ -n "$data" ]; then
        curl -s -X "$method" \
            -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
            "${APPIUM_URL:-http://localhost:4723}/${endpoint}" \
            -d "$data"
    else
        curl -s -X "$method" \
            "${APPIUM_URL:-http://localhost:4723}/${endpoint}"
    fi
}

MANDATORY: Discovery-First Pattern

Always discover server status and available devices before querying specifics.

Phase 1: Discovery

#!/bin/bash

echo "=== Appium Server Status ==="
appium_api GET "status" | jq '{ready: .value.ready, build: .value.build}'

echo ""
echo "=== Active Sessions ==="
appium_api GET "sessions" | jq -r '
    .value[] | "\(.id)\t\(.capabilities.platformName)\t\(.capabilities.deviceName // "unknown")\t\(.capabilities.browserName // .capabilities.app // "native")"
' | column -t

echo ""
echo "=== Connected Devices (Android) ==="
adb devices -l 2>/dev/null | tail -n +2 | head -10

echo ""
echo "=== Connected Devices (iOS) ==="
xcrun xctrace list devices 2>/dev/null | head -10

echo ""
echo "=== Appium Drivers ==="
appium driver list --installed 2>/dev/null | head -10

Phase 2: Analysis

#!/bin/bash

echo "=== Appium Configuration ==="
if [ -f "appium.conf.json" ]; then
    cat appium.conf.json | jq '.' | head -20
fi

echo ""
echo "=== Desired Capabilities in Tests ==="
grep -rn "desiredCapabilities\|capabilities" --include="*.js" --include="*.ts" --include="*.py" --include="*.java" 2>/dev/null | grep -v node_modules | head -15

echo ""
echo "=== Test Results ==="
REPORT_DIR="${APPIUM_REPORT_DIR:-test-results}"
if [ -d "$REPORT_DIR" ]; then
    find "$REPORT_DIR" -name "*.xml" | while read f; do
        grep -c 'testcase' "$f" | xargs echo "$f: tests="
    done | head -10
    echo ""
    echo "=== Failures ==="
    grep -rn '<failure' "$REPORT_DIR" --include="*.xml" | head -10
fi

Output Rules

• TOKEN EFFICIENCY: Target 50 lines per output
• Summarize capabilities and session info, not full payloads
• Never dump full device logs — extract relevant error sections

Anti-Hallucination Rules

• NEVER guess device names or UDIDs — always discover via adb/xcrun
• NEVER fabricate session IDs — query active sessions from server
• NEVER assume driver availability — check installed drivers first

Safety Rules

• NEVER terminate sessions without explicit user confirmation
• NEVER install or uninstall apps on devices without user approval
• NEVER modify server configuration without user consent

Output Format

Present results as a structured report:

Managing Appium Report
══════════════════════
Resources discovered: [count]

Resource       Status    Key Metric    Issues
──────────────────────────────────────────────
[name]         [ok/warn] [value]       [findings]

Summary: [total] resources | [ok] healthy | [warn] warnings | [crit] critical
Action Items: [list of prioritized findings]

Target ≤50 lines of output. Use tables for multi-resource comparisons.

Counter-Rationalizations