Android activity manager "am" command help

gistfile1.txt

adb shell am
usage: am [subcommand] [options]
usage: am start [-D] [-W] [-P <FILE>] [--start-profiler <FILE>]
               [--R COUNT] [-S] [--opengl-trace] <INTENT>
       am startservice <INTENT>
       am force-stop <PACKAGE>
       am kill <PACKAGE>
       am kill-all
       am broadcast <INTENT>
       am instrument [-r] [-e <NAME> <VALUE>] [-p <FILE>] [-w]
               [--no-window-animation] <COMPONENT>
       am profile start <PROCESS> <FILE>
       am profile stop [<PROCESS>]
       am dumpheap [flags] <PROCESS> <FILE>
       am set-debug-app [-w] [--persistent] <PACKAGE>
       am clear-debug-app
       am monitor [--gdb <port>]
       am screen-compat [on|off] <PACKAGE>
       am display-size [reset|MxN]
       am to-uri [INTENT]
       am to-intent-uri [INTENT]

am start: start an Activity.  Options are:
    -D: enable debugging
    -W: wait for launch to complete
    --start-profiler <FILE>: start profiler and send results to <FILE>
    -P <FILE>: like above, but profiling stops when app goes idle
    -R: repeat the activity launch <COUNT> times.  Prior to each repeat,
        the top activity will be finished.
    -S: force stop the target app before starting the activity
    --opengl-trace: enable tracing of OpenGL functions

am startservice: start a Service.

am force-stop: force stop everything associated with <PACKAGE>.

am kill: Kill all processes associated with <PACKAGE>.  Only kills.
  processes that are safe to kill -- that is, will not impact the user
  experience.

am kill-all: Kill all background processes.

am broadcast: send a broadcast Intent.

am instrument: start an Instrumentation.  Typically this target <COMPONENT>
  is the form <TEST_PACKAGE>/<RUNNER_CLASS>.  Options are:
    -r: print raw results (otherwise decode REPORT_KEY_STREAMRESULT).  Use with
        [-e perf true] to generate raw output for performance measurements.
    -e <NAME> <VALUE>: set argument <NAME> to <VALUE>.  For test runners a
        common form is [-e <testrunner_flag> <value>[,<value>...]].
    -p <FILE>: write profiling data to <FILE>
    -w: wait for instrumentation to finish before returning.  Required for
        test runners.
    --no-window-animation: turn off window animations will running.

am profile: start and stop profiler on a process.

am dumpheap: dump the heap of a process.  Options are:
    -n: dump native heap instead of managed heap

am set-debug-app: set application <PACKAGE> to debug.  Options are:
    -w: wait for debugger when application starts
    --persistent: retain this value

am clear-debug-app: clear the previously set-debug-app.

am monitor: start monitoring for crashes or ANRs.
    --gdb: start gdbserv on the given port at crash/ANR

am screen-compat: control screen compatibility mode of <PACKAGE>.

am display-size: override display size.

am to-uri: print the given Intent specification as a URI.

am to-intent-uri: print the given Intent specification as an intent: URI.

<INTENT> specifications include these flags and arguments:
    [-a <ACTION>] [-d <DATA_URI>] [-t <MIME_TYPE>]
    [-c <CATEGORY> [-c <CATEGORY>] ...]
    [-e|--es <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_STRING_VALUE> ...]
    [--esn <EXTRA_KEY> ...]
    [--ez <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_BOOLEAN_VALUE> ...]
    [--ei <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_INT_VALUE> ...]
    [--el <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_LONG_VALUE> ...]
    [--ef <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_FLOAT_VALUE> ...]
    [--eu <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_URI_VALUE> ...]
    [--ecn <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_COMPONENT_NAME_VALUE>]
    [--eia <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_INT_VALUE>[,<EXTRA_INT_VALUE...]]
    [--ela <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_LONG_VALUE>[,<EXTRA_LONG_VALUE...]]
    [--efa <EXTRA_KEY> <EXTRA_FLOAT_VALUE>[,<EXTRA_FLOAT_VALUE...]]
    [-n <COMPONENT>] [-f <FLAGS>]
    [--grant-read-uri-permission] [--grant-write-uri-permission]
    [--debug-log-resolution] [--exclude-stopped-packages]
    [--include-stopped-packages]
    [--activity-brought-to-front] [--activity-clear-top]
    [--activity-clear-when-task-reset] [--activity-exclude-from-recents]
    [--activity-launched-from-history] [--activity-multiple-task]
    [--activity-no-animation] [--activity-no-history]
    [--activity-no-user-action] [--activity-previous-is-top]
    [--activity-reorder-to-front] [--activity-reset-task-if-needed]
    [--activity-single-top] [--activity-clear-task]
    [--activity-task-on-home]
    [--receiver-registered-only] [--receiver-replace-pending]
    [--selector]
    [<URI> | <PACKAGE> | <COMPONENT>]

You can get the latest page by running adb shell am -h

You can get the latest page by running adb shell am -h

...and the page it gives you is long enough that it needs a $PAGER, specifically tells you to use help instead of -h (although both work) and notably (and POSIX-ly) doesn't allow the use of --help (which is annoying)

start-activity , start-service , start-foreground-service are all detailed in my version of the help, but start itself isn't. However it still works. There is no --version command, but this gist seems out of date. Original gist is 10 years old.

start seems like the old version of start-activity

how do you ask an activity to list the Extra parameters it accepts?