Input and output reports specify HID control data. Input controls include data relevant to an application such as the coordinates of a finger. Output controls are a sink for application data such as lighting up a display or activating a touch sensor. A feature report specifies configuration information for a particular device. A user mode application can obtain feature information by using this report designation.

The HID enumeration requires the device to send an HID descriptor, which contains information about all of the data and its formats. Report descriptors sent to the host determine the report format. All reports are preceded by a report ID, which describes how the host and the device identify the particular report and how data is parsed between multiple reports.