adbx

A terminal UI for Android wireless debugging. Discovers devices on your LAN via mDNS, handles pairing automatically, and connects with a single keypress — no IP addresses or manual adb pair commands needed.

The problem it solves

Android's Wireless Debugging requires knowing the device's IP and port, running adb pair <ip:port>, entering a 6-digit code, then running adb connect <ip:port> with a different port. Getting this wrong (wrong port, stale pairing, dismissed dialog) produces cryptic adb error strings with no guidance.

adbx automates the entire flow:

1. Scans mDNS for all Android devices advertising wireless debug services
2. Detects when a device needs pairing and watches for the pairing dialog to open
3. Prompts for the 6-digit code, pairs, then auto-connects — no IP copying required

Prerequisites

Dependency	Linux	macOS
adb (Android SDK Platform Tools)	sudo pacman -S android-tools	brew install android-platform-tools
avahi-daemon	sudo systemctl enable --now avahi-daemon	not required
Android 11+ device	Settings → Developer Options → Wireless Debugging → enable	same

Install

Homebrew (macOS / Linux)

brew tap imvaskii/tap
brew install adbx

One-line installer (macOS / Linux)

curl -fsSL https://github.com/imvaskii/adbx/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sh

Detects your OS and architecture, downloads the right binary, and installs to a user-writable directory already in your $PATH. On macOS it also strips the quarantine attribute automatically.

From source

go install github.com/imvaskii/adbx@latest

Locally-built binaries are never quarantined by macOS.

Build locally

make install   # builds and copies to ~/.local/bin/adbx

Pre-built binaries for Linux and macOS (arm64/amd64) are also attached to each release.

macOS: first run (pre-built binary only)

If you download a binary directly and see "Apple could not verify adbx is free of malware", remove the quarantine attribute:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./adbx

The Homebrew and one-line installer methods handle this automatically.

Usage

adbx                     # launch TUI — scan, select device, connect
adbx diag <ip:port>      # print raw adb output (debugging parser issues)

Keybindings

Key	Action
j / k	move down / up
G / gg	jump to bottom / top
enter	select device
r	rescan
esc	back
q / ctrl+c	quit

Build from source

make build       # native binary → bin/adbx
make build-all   # linux/darwin binaries → bin/
make test        # run tests
make help        # list all targets

How it works

adbx watches two mDNS service types that Android publishes:

• _adb-tls-connect._tcp — device is paired and ready to connect
• _adb-tls-pairing._tcp — device's pairing dialog is currently open

Linux

Uses avahi-browse for long-running service watches. This avoids multicast socket conflicts with the system avahi-daemon, which holds exclusive access to the mDNS port on most distros. A zeroconf scan runs once on startup for an immediate device list.

macOS

Uses the three-step dns-sd pipeline:

1. dns-sd -B — browse: discovers service instances as they appear/disappear
2. dns-sd -L — lookup: resolves a service instance to hostname + port
3. dns-sd -G v4 — get address: resolves hostname to IPv4 address

Each step is a separate subprocess; all three are injectable via a subprocessRunner seam for testing without network access.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
No devices shown	mDNS not reaching host	Linux: check avahi-daemon is running; macOS: check Wi-Fi is on same network as device
"Cannot connect to daemon"	adb server not running	Run adb start-server
Pairing times out	Dialog dismissed on device	Re-open Wireless Debugging → Pair device with pairing code
"Apple could not verify"	macOS Gatekeeper quarantine	xattr -d com.apple.quarantine ./adbx or use go install
Wrong port after pairing	Stale adb state	Run adb disconnect then rescan with r
adbx diag shows daemon noise	Expected — adb prints startup lines to stdout	adbx strips these automatically