Broadcasts

Sending Android intent broadcasts (adb shell am broadcast) to a connected device.

send_broadcast

Send an Android intent broadcast to a device: adb shell am broadcast.

Models the intent semantically (action/component/package/extras) rather than accepting a raw command string — see the module docs for why this server never exposes arbitrary shell arguments.

Parameters:

Name	Type	Description	Default
serial	str	The target device's adb serial (see list_connected_devices).	required
action	str	The broadcast's Intent action, e.g. "android.intent.action.MY_ACTION" (-a).	required
component	str | None	Restrict delivery to one explicit receiver, in "package/class" form, e.g. "com.example.app/.MyReceiver" (-n). A relative class name (starting with ".") is resolved against the package. Omit to let any registered receiver match.	None
package	str | None	Restrict delivery to receivers declared by one package (-p). Can be combined with component, though component alone already implies a package.	None
user_id	int | None	Send the broadcast as one specific Android user (--user, see list_users). Omit to use am's default user.	None
receiver_permission	str | None	Require receivers to hold this permission to receive the broadcast, e.g. "com.example.MY_PERMISSION" (--receiver-permission). Omit to require no permission.	None
extras	list[BroadcastExtra] | None	Simple scalar Intent extras to attach (--es/--ei/--el/ --ef/--ez). Array, URI, and component-name extras aren't supported.	None

Returns:

Type	Description
BroadcastResult	The broadcast's completion info: the serial/action/component/ package/user_id/receiver_permission sent, the parsed result_code (and result_data/result_extras when a receiver set them), and the raw am output.

Error handling

Propagates the same way most tools do (unlike check_adb_available): if the adb binary itself can't be found or is unresponsive, or the serial doesn't match a connected device, that surfaces as an actual tool error. A malformed component string (not "package/class" shape) raises COMPONENT_NOT_FOUND; a protected action the caller isn't allowed to send raises PERMISSION_DENIED; any other ActivityManager failure raises a generic BACKEND_ERROR. A well-formed component or package that simply doesn't match any installed receiver is NOT an error — Android resolves receivers at delivery time, so that case completes normally with result_code=0.

Example

Called with serial="emulator-5554", action="android.intent.action.MY_ACTION". A typical response:

{
  "status": "success",
  "message": "Broadcast 'android.intent.action.MY_ACTION' completed on emulator-5554 (result=0).",
  "data": {
    "serial": "emulator-5554",
    "action": "android.intent.action.MY_ACTION",
    "component": null,
    "package": null,
    "user_id": null,
    "receiver_permission": null,
    "result_code": 0,
    "result_data": null,
    "result_extras": null,
    "output": "Broadcasting: Intent { act=android.intent.action.MY_ACTION }\nBroadcast completed: result=0\n"
  },
  "error": null
}