Android device only visible in recovery mode

Issue

If I run adb devices while my Nexus 4 is in recovery mode, I see the appropiate entry.

List of devices attached 
0174395ce35136bd    recovery

However if I reboot into the bootloader, no entry shows up. What might cause this? I need to be able to operate on the device in this state to re-flash the stock Android rom.

lsusb (I am running linux) shows the same corresponding entry in both cases

Bus 001 Device 022: ID 18d1:4ee0 Google Inc. 

And I ran adb start-server as root, so it should not be a permissions issue.

Solution

adb and fastboot are distinct tools / protocols, so adb devices is probably not supposed to see fastboot-mode targets.

The appropriate device list command would be

fastboot devices

Answered By - Chris Stratton