Windows: COM Automation

Automation Mechanism

COM (Component Object Model) is Windows's binary interface standard, supported by almost all Windows applications and the Office suite.

IPC Method: COM IPC

• COM uses the IDispatch interface for cross-process calls
• This is Windows's native IPC mechanism with excellent performance

Examples

PowerShell

$outlook = New-Object -ComObject Outlook.Application
$mail = $outlook.CreateItem(0)
$mail.To = "alice@example.com"
$mail.Subject = "Hello"
$mail.Body = "Hi Alice..."
$mail.Send()

Python (pywin32)

import win32com.client

outlook = win32com.client.Dispatch("Outlook.Application")
mail = outlook.CreateItem(0)
mail.To = "alice@example.com"
mail.Subject = "Hello"
mail.Body = "Hi Alice..."
mail.Send()

Integration Guide

Existing automation support

If the application already supports COM, zero code is needed to integrate with AAI:

1. Confirm the application's ProgID (e.g., MyApp.Application)
2. Write aai.json configuration file
3. Place in %USERPROFILE%\.aai\<appId>\aai.json
4. Done!

No automation support

If the application has no automation support, you need to:

1. Implement COM IDispatch interface (C#/C++)
2. Register ProgID
3. Write aai.json configuration file

aai.json Fields

Field	Type	Description
platforms.windows.automation	string	Automation type: com
platforms.windows.progid	string	COM ProgID (e.g., Outlook.Application)
platforms.windows.tools[].script	array	COM operation sequence
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].action	string	Operation type: create (create object), call (call method), set (set property), get (get property), return (return result)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].var	string	Variable name (for storing return values)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].object	string	Object reference (e.g., mail, app)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].progid	string	ProgID (only used in create operations)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].method	string	Method name (only used in call operations)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].property	string	Property name (only used in set/get operations)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].value	string	Property value (supports ${param} placeholders)
platforms.windows.tools[].script[].args	array	Method arguments (supports ${param} placeholders)
platforms.windows.tools[].output_parser	string	Output parsing method: last_result (return value of last operation)
platforms.windows.tools[].timeout	integer	Timeout in seconds, default 30

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