The Developer Device Platform (DDP) represents Google Cloud's commercial-grade, cloud-first platform for remote mobile device orchestration, automated batch testing, and agentic development workflows. DDP integrates managed device farm infrastructure directly into the Google Cloud ecosystem. This glossary provides an alphabetical, technical reference of key concepts, architectural components, API surfaces, CLI commands, and operational paradigms defining DDP.
See the list on this page to learn the basic terminology of the Developer Device Platform and related technologies. Here are other sources for definitions of key terms:
- Google Cloud Terms Directory
- Google Cloud Services Summary
- Generative AI glossary
- Identities for workloads
- Service agents list
A
Agent Skill (DDP Agent Skill and Migration Skill)
DDP Agent Skill
An open-source, task-specific instruction
set published under Google Cloud
Skills on GitHub
/skills/cloud/developer-device-platform-basics.
Designed for AI coding assistants such as Antigravity, ChatGPT, and Claude Code,
the DDP Agent Skill enables agents to programmatically lease remote devices with
the Device Streaming API, initialize ADB forwarding daemons, execute shell
commands, capture frame buffer screenshots, and trigger automated test suites
using the gcloud device-run CLI.
Migration Skill
A skill for migrating from Firebase Test Lab to Developer Device Platform that offers a detailed mapping of flags and other differences and includes a plain-text version aimed specifically at AI agents.
Android Test Orchestrator
Android Test Orchestrator lets you run each of your app's tests within its own instrumentation invocation. See more details at Use Android Test Orchestrator.
APK set (.apks)
A package archive format generated by bundletool for Android App Bundles
(AAB). DDP natively supports installing .apks files.
AutomationSession Service (DeviceRun API)
The core batch execution engine of DDP, hosted under devicerun.googleapis.com.
The AutomationSession service accepts application binaries and hardware criteria
in a single unified API call. The backend handles device allocation, environment
provisioning, test driver execution, log collection, and teardown as an atomic
operation.
C
Cloud Storage Model (User-Owned Buckets)
DDP's storage architecture where all test input artifacts (APKs) and output
results are hosted within storage buckets owned by the developer's
Google Cloud project (e.g., gs://<project_id>_devicerun).
D
Developer Device Platform (DDP)
Google Cloud's enterprise platform for remote device testing and agentic mobile development, hosted on Google Cloud. DDP provides managed device farm infrastructure natively integrated with Google Cloud console, IAM, Cloud Billing, and SDK.
Device Catalog API
A unified, AIP-compliant device discovery surface hosted under
devicerun.googleapis.com
for projects and locations. Device
Catalog presents a single flat
collection covering physical and virtual Android and iOS devices. Each entry
exposes a stable opaque device ID, hardware specifications, and real-time fleet
capacity and availability signals.
| Catalog Attribute | Data Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
name |
String | Resource path (projects/my-project/locations/global/devices/device-id). |
form |
Enum | Hardware type (PHYSICAL or VIRTUAL). |
os_version |
String | OS release or Android SDK level (e.g., 35 or 17.4). |
availability |
Message | Fleet capacity signal (HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW, NONE). |
Device Run API
The umbrella
devicerun.googleapis.com
that consolidates remote device testing, catalog discovery, and agentic
workflows into a cloud-native service as described in the Device Run
overview.
Device Streaming API
The built-in Google Cloud offering
devicestreaming.googleapis.com
that provides interactive remote device streaming capabilities. The
Device Streaming API enables
developers to stream real-time device displays directly into Android Studio.
E
Execution
The lowest tier in Developer Device Platform Device Run's three-tiered resource
hierarchy (Session -> Job -> Execution). An Execution represents a
concrete, system-generated runtime attempt to run a test suite or shard on an
allocated device, capturing raw output logs, system logs, and video recordings.
F
Flank
A popular third-party, open-source client-side test runner developed to optimize test execution and sharding. DDP natively absorbs Flank's core capabilities—including YAML-based configuration, advanced historical smart sharding, and targeted retries—rendering external wrappers unnecessary.
G
gcloud device-run
The primary Google Cloud SDK command-line interface for DDP batch testing and
streaming operations. Operating on a resource-centric gcloud device-run
<resource> <verb> pattern, it provides commands to submit test sessions, query device availability, poll execution status, and download results.
J
Job
The middle tier in Developer Device Platform Device Run's three-tiered resource
hierarchy (Session -> Job -> Execution). A Job pairs a specific automation
configuration (JobAction, such as an Android instrumentation test) with a
target device configuration. A single Job automatically expands into multiple
Executions when sharding or retries are enabled.
N
NO_ACCESS_BLOCKED_BY_ORG_ADMIN
An access status tag returned in the DDP Device Catalog indicating that a specific device model or partner lab (e.g., third-party OEM hardware) has been restricted by an Organization Administrator using Google Cloud Resource Manager Tags or Organization Policies.
O
One Platform API Dependency Groups
A Google Cloud service control plane feature that automatically triggers the backend activation of dependent APIs. When a developer enables a DDP API, dependency groups automatically activate under the hood.
P
Partner Device Labs
Remote device labs operated directly by Google OEM partners (such as Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, OnePlus, vivo, Transsion) integrated into DDP. Partner labs expand device catalog variety and require explicit project-level enablement in Google Cloud console.
S
Sequential Flaky Test Retry
A cost-saving retry mechanism in DDP that isolates and retries only individual failing test cases within a shard, running them sequentially by default rather than re-running the entire shard concurrently.
Service Agent (Service Account)
A Google-managed Google Cloud service account created automatically when DDP APIs are enabled in a Google Cloud project. The DDP Service Agent holds IAM service permissions to securely read input test binaries from and write test output logs and videos to user-owned Google Cloud Storage buckets, publish status notifications to Google Cloud Pub/Sub topics, and orchestrate hardware allocations in managed data centers on behalf of the project.
Service Usage / API Enablement
The Google Cloud service management subsystem responsible for enabling and
configuring Google Cloud APIs for a project. Enabling DDP requires
project-level permissions or the devicerun.googleapis.com,
devicestreaming.googleapis.com, and testing.googleapis.com service roles.
Session
The top-level container in Developer Device Platform Device Run's resource
hierarchy (projects/my-project/locations/global/sessions/session-id). A
Session encapsulates a user's batch submission, containing one or more Jobs
executed across device matrixes or Gradle modules, and produces an aggregated
SessionReport.
In the Developer Device Platform Device Streaming API, a deviceSession represents a
single remote device streaming session. Instead of running batch scripts to
completion, the Device Streaming API reserves a single device and opens a
live, bidirectional connection so an engineer or AI agent can view the screen
and control the device in real time.
Smart Sharding
An intelligent test partitioning mechanism in Developer Device Platform
Device Run (--sharding-option=smart). Smart Sharding analyzes up to
30 days of historical test execution data, tracks runtimes per specific device
model, and accounts for Android Test Orchestrator startup overhead to distribute
test suites into balanced shards targeting a specified duration.
U
Uniform Sharding
A test distribution strategy (--sharding-option=uniform
--uniform-sharding-count=N) in Developer Device Platform Device Run that
partitions an Android instrumentation test suite across a fixed number of shards
($N$) using AndroidJUnitRunner's native -e numShards and -e shardIndex
parameters.