I can't find the link now, but there are two ways (I know of) for getting the xdotool way to work. One way is the Durden 'control' socket and a standalone tool 'arcan-cfgfs /path/to/.arcan/appl-out/durden/control /my/mountpoint' that is a FUSE driver. You can mount the desktop as a file system and automate everything like that: echo "typethis" > /my/mountpoint/windows/all/text/input".
Another is to expose that more generally with hookscripts (force-injected Lua scripts that override or add features to the WM you use, arcan -Hhooks/something.lua).
The Arcan project[1] has pushed for this for a loooong time and doing some really interesting cutting edge things with it.
Depending on which set of Lua scripts it runs it fills a different role. The first set becomes the display server and window manager. It can then run itself recursively to provide graphical 'apps' (but also X11 ones, Wayland ones, ...).
I run the 'regular' desktop (stacking, tiling, ...) 'durden' right now, but I hope to switch to the more crazy dataflow/zui one (pipeworld[2]) or the VR one (safespaces[3]).
Then it has an additional 'curses like' one for TUIs and CLIs, 'arcan-tui' with a default shell Lash#Cat9[4]. Looking at their recent posts there also seem to be a network story including server-side processing, but I haven't had the time to play with out more than following the examples in the blog so can't say more about that.
EltaninOS[5] is trying to build a distribution around it.
