I am looking to access the element and by variables which are globally available in my test, but when I try to call them from a helper module required/imported by the test I get an undefined error. How can I import these variables directly?
Make sure detox.init() call happens earlier than you access those variables (element, by) because init method is the actual place where Detox globally exposes them.
After you call await detox.init(<your options>), you'll be able to initialize your helpers.