hidapi

hidapi is an open-source, cross-platform library that provides a simple API for programming USB Human Interface Devices (HID). It abstracts the platform-specific HID APIs behind a consistent C interface, enabling applications to enumerate connected HID devices, open a device by vendor and product identifiers or by a platform-specific path, and exchange input, output, and feature reports.

The library supports Windows, macOS, and Linux (with some BSD ports in practice), and relies on the native HID subsystems on each platform: IOKit on macOS, HID API and SetupAPI on Windows, and the hidraw interface on Linux. This approach avoids requiring lower-level kernel modules or external libraries such as libusb, while providing access to devices that appear as HID class devices.

Key features include device enumeration (which returns a linked list of hid_device_info structures containing vendor_id, product_id, serial_number, and path), open and close operations, and report I/O via hid_read, hid_write, get_feature_report, and set_feature_report. The API also provides hid_init and hid_exit for library lifecycle management and error reporting via returns and an optional error string.

Bindings and language support are provided by many bindings and projects, including Python, Java, C#, Go, and others, making it a common choice for hobbyist and professional projects that communicate with HID devices such as keyboards, mice, game controllers, and microcontroller boards.

hidapi is released under the MIT License.