Unattended remote access and remote control

[Rambomst]

Turns the Android agent into a full unattended remote-control agent: background screen sharing and remote input, running as a persistent foreground service.

Unattended operation

• specialUse foreground service + boot receiver, so it runs and reconnects without the app open.
• Shared AgentController runtime for lifecycle; unattended setup prompts and settings.

Remote control (previously view-only)

• Accessibility service provides background capture (takeScreenshot) and remote input: mouse/touch as gestures, keyboard as text + cursor/navigation, and Android global actions (app drawer, notifications, quick settings, lock, power).

Platform & tooling

• Merged latest upstream (Android SDK 37), file-download fix, edge-to-edge/system-bar handling.
• GitHub Actions PR build workflow; developer docs under docs/.

Known limitations

• Sideloads are flagged by Play Protect (accessibility/remote-control category); install via adb install or enterprise deployment. On Android 13+ the accessibility toggle is a Restricted Setting unless installed via ADB/EMM.
• Unattended capture is ~2-3 fps (Android throttles AccessibilityService.takeScreenshot).
• Secure surfaces and the lock screen are redacted by Android and can't be captured or controlled by a non-privileged app.

Disclaimer: developed with an AI coding assistant.

[Rambomst]

Ive had this running on two devices without any issues for the past week or so. My initial commit introduce some battery issues but that was resolved and now its back to basically using nothing.

[Rambomst]

A few fixes to the unattended consent flow, with Play Store approval in mind.

• Consent is properly enforced now. With Automatic Consent off, every session has to be approved (in-app dialog, or Approve/Deny on the notification), so there's no silent screen capture, which is the main thing Google flags for apps like this.
• Removed the battery optimization popup that auto-fired on launch, since auto-firing that intent is a known rejection trigger. It's only reachable from Settings now.
• Capture only runs during an active session and shows a persistent notification plus a per-session one, so it stays transparent rather than looking like spyware.

To hopefully get this through review we need to do this in Play Console:

• Complete the Accessibility API declaration and add a prominent in-app disclosure, framed as person-driven remote support as Google restricts accessibility use for automation as of the Jan 2026 policy change.
• Fill in the foreground service types declaration for the specialUse service which needs a short justification and a demo video. Something like this:

MeshCentral Agent is a remote management/support tool. The foreground service keeps a persistent connection to the management server open so an administrator can reach the device on demand for remote desktop, file transfer, and commands. It has to run continuously and indefinitely; it isn't a finite data sync, media playback, location job, or any other predefined types, so specialUse applies.

• There might also be a need to justify the battery optimization exemption, but that should be fine since this agent wouldn't work properly without it. If they did have an issue with it we can change it pretty easily but no harm in trying if this was already going through review.

How to sideload this with the accessibility changes:

Play Store > profile icon > Play Protect > gear/settings icon > toggle off "Scan apps with Play Protect" > install the APK > turn it back on after.

Then it blocks the accessibility access until we do this:
Settings > Apps > Mesh Central > App info⋮(top-right) > Allow restricted settings (authenticate), then the toggle works.

[GlitchedCod]

I hope that this get official one day, it's really a useful feature. The app itself without that is basically useless, it's not ok to ask a user how to go to the home menu, find all the apps, start the agent and then allow the screen sharing. Plus you can't see when a device is online on the MeshCentral dashboard since the app is not running in the background if it wasn't started at the launch of the device.

It would also be cool to add the "device administrator" rights to the app so that it can be set as the device owner, disable FRP on the device and so that the user can't uninstall it unless the device is wiped.

[Rambomst]

@GlitchedCod Yeah I hope this gets merged as well, I brought it up at the community meeting last night so hopefully it will get some traction.

As for your request around device administrator functionality, that would be out of scope for this PR. One thing of note around that, I don't think that sort of functionality would ever make it to the play store build, so if it was to be development it would be something that needs to get manually deployed to each device you want to manage via ADB.

[marclaporte]

I know @kambereBr is testing this PR. yay!

I look forward to this as I have an Android device which I need to manage from time to time :-)

[GlitchedCod]

I know @kambereBr is testing this PR. yay!

I look forward to this as I have an Android device which I need to manage from time to time :-)

That is so cool ! This is definitely gonna be a game changer. Fun fact I actually read this merge request yesterday to see if they were any update onto it.

[Rambomst]

I have created a MeshCentral PR which implements some UI changes to facilitate interactions with this agent, things like buttons to go home/back/recents menu/etc.

MeshCentral #8123