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agent-device

CLI to control iOS and Android devices for AI agents influenced by Vercel’s agent-browser.

The project is in early development and considered experimental. Pull requests are welcome!

Features

• Platforms: iOS (simulator + limited device support) and Android (emulator + device).
• Core commands: open, back, home, app-switcher, press, long-press, swipe, focus, type, fill, scroll, scrollintoview, pinch, wait, alert, screenshot, close, reinstall.
• Inspection commands: snapshot (accessibility tree).
• Device tooling: adb (Android), simctl/devicectl (iOS via Xcode).
• Minimal dependencies; TypeScript executed directly on Node 22+ (no build step).

Install

npm install -g agent-device

Or use it without installing:

npx agent-device open SampleApp

Quick Start

Use refs for agent-driven exploration and normal automation flows.

agent-device open Contacts --platform ios # creates session on iOS Simulator
agent-device snapshot
agent-device click @e5
agent-device fill @e6 "John"
agent-device fill @e7 "Doe"
agent-device click @e3
agent-device close

CLI Usage

agent-device <command> [args] [--json]

Basic flow:

agent-device open SampleApp
agent-device snapshot
agent-device click @e7
agent-device fill @e8 "hello"
agent-device close SampleApp

Debug flow:

agent-device trace start
agent-device snapshot -s "Sample App"
agent-device find label "Wi-Fi" click
agent-device trace stop ./trace.log

Coordinates:

• All coordinate-based commands (press, long-press, swipe, focus, fill) use device coordinates with origin at top-left.
• X increases to the right, Y increases downward.

Gesture series examples:

agent-device press 300 500 --count 12 --interval-ms 45
agent-device press 300 500 --count 6 --hold-ms 120 --interval-ms 30 --jitter-px 2
agent-device swipe 540 1500 540 500 120 --count 8 --pause-ms 30 --pattern ping-pong

Command Index

• boot, open, close, reinstall, home, back, app-switcher
• snapshot, find, get
• click, focus, type, fill, press, long-press, swipe, scroll, scrollintoview, pinch, is
• alert, wait, screenshot
• trace start, trace stop
• settings wifi|airplane|location on|off
• appstate, apps, devices, session list

Backends (iOS snapshots)

Backend	Speed	Accuracy	Requirements
xctest	Fast	High	No Accessibility permission required
ax	Fast	Medium	Accessibility permission for the terminal app, not recommended

Notes:

• Default backend is xctest on iOS.
• Scope snapshots with -s "<label>" or -s @ref.
• If XCTest returns 0 nodes (e.g., foreground app changed), agent-device falls back to AX when available.

Flags:

• --version, -V print version and exit
• --platform ios|android
• --device <name>
• --udid <udid> (iOS)
• --serial <serial> (Android)
• --activity <component> (Android app launch only; package/Activity or package/.Activity; not for URL opens)
• --session <name>
• --count <n> repeat count for press/swipe
• --interval-ms <ms> delay between press iterations
• --hold-ms <ms> hold duration per press iteration
• --jitter-px <n> deterministic coordinate jitter for press
• --pause-ms <ms> delay between swipe iterations
• --pattern one-way|ping-pong repeat pattern for swipe
• --verbose for daemon and runner logs
• --json for structured output
• --backend ax|xctest (snapshot only; defaults to xctest on iOS)

Pinch:

• pinch is supported on iOS simulators.
• On Android, pinch currently returns UNSUPPORTED_OPERATION in the adb backend.

Swipe timing:

• swipe accepts optional durationMs (default 250, range 16..10000).
• Android uses requested swipe duration directly.
• iOS uses a safe normalized duration to avoid long-press side effects.

Skills

Install the automation skills listed in SKILL.md.

npx skills add https://github.com/callstackincubator/agent-device --skill agent-device

Sessions:

• open starts a session. Without args boots/activates the target device/simulator without launching an app.
• All interaction commands require an open session.
• If a session is already open, open <app|url> switches the active app or opens a deep link URL.
• close stops the session and releases device resources. Pass an app to close it explicitly, or omit to just close the session.
• Use --session <name> to manage multiple sessions.
• Session scripts are written to ~/.agent-device/sessions/<session>-<timestamp>.ad when recording is enabled with --save-script.
• Deterministic replay is .ad-based; use replay --update (-u) to update selector drift and rewrite the replay file in place.

Navigation helpers:

• boot --platform ios|android ensures the target is ready without launching an app.
• Use boot mainly when starting a new session and open fails because no booted simulator/emulator is available.
• open [app|url] already boots/activates the selected target when needed.
• reinstall <app> <path> uninstalls and installs the app binary in one command (Android + iOS simulator in v1).
• reinstall accepts package/bundle id style app names and supports ~ in paths.

Deep links:

• open <url> supports deep links with scheme://....
• Android opens deep links via VIEW intent.
• iOS deep link open is simulator-only in v1.
• --activity cannot be combined with URL opens.

agent-device open "myapp://home" --platform android
agent-device open "https://example.com" --platform ios

Find (semantic):

• find <text> <action> [value] finds by any text (label/value/identifier) using a scoped snapshot.
• find text|label|value|role|id <value> <action> [value] for specific locators.
• Actions: click (default), fill, type, focus, get text, get attrs, wait [timeout], exists.

Assertions:

• is predicates: visible, hidden, exists, editable, selected, text.
• is text uses exact equality.

Replay update:

• replay <path> runs deterministic replay from .ad scripts.
• replay -u <path> attempts selector updates on failures and atomically rewrites the same file.
• Refs are the default/core mechanism for interactive agent flows.
• Update targets: click, fill, get, is, wait.
• Selector matching is a replay-update internal: replay parses .ad lines into actions, tries them, snapshots on failure, resolves a better selector, then rewrites that failing line.

Update examples:

# Before (stale selector)
click "id=\"old_continue\" || label=\"Continue\""

# After replay -u (rewritten in place)
click "id=\"auth_continue\" || label=\"Continue\""

# Before (ref-based action from discovery)
snapshot -i -c -s "Continue"
click @e13 "Continue"

# After replay -u (upgraded to selector-based action)
snapshot -i -c -s "Continue"
click "id=\"auth_continue\" || label=\"Continue\""

Android fill reliability:

• fill clears the current value, then enters text.
• type enters text into the focused field without clearing.
• fill now verifies the entered value on Android.
• If value does not match, agent-device clears the field and retries once with slower typing.
• This reduces IME-related character swaps on long strings (e.g. emails and IDs).

Settings helpers (simulators):

• settings wifi on|off
• settings airplane on|off
• settings location on|off (iOS uses per-app permission for the current session app) Note: iOS wifi/airplane toggles status bar indicators, not actual network state. Airplane off clears status bar overrides.

App state:

• appstate shows the foreground app/activity (Android). On iOS it uses the current session app when available, otherwise it falls back to a snapshot-based guess (AX first, XCTest if AX can’t identify).
• apps --metadata returns app list with minimal metadata.

Debug

• agent-device trace start
• agent-device trace stop ./trace.log
• The trace log includes snapshot logs and XCTest runner logs for the session.
• Built-in retries cover transient runner connection failures, AX snapshot hiccups, and Android UI dumps.
• For snapshot issues (missing elements), compare with --raw flag for unaltered output and scope with -s "<label>".

Boot diagnostics:

• Boot failures include normalized reason codes in error.details.reason (JSON mode) and verbose logs.
• Reason codes: IOS_BOOT_TIMEOUT, IOS_RUNNER_CONNECT_TIMEOUT, ANDROID_BOOT_TIMEOUT, ADB_TRANSPORT_UNAVAILABLE, CI_RESOURCE_STARVATION_SUSPECTED, BOOT_COMMAND_FAILED, UNKNOWN.
• Android boot waits fail fast for permission/tooling issues and do not always collapse into timeout errors.
• Use agent-device boot --platform ios|android when starting a new session only if open cannot find/connect to an available target.
• Set AGENT_DEVICE_RETRY_LOGS=1 to print structured retry telemetry (attempt, phase, delay, elapsed/remaining deadline, reason).

App resolution

• Bundle/package identifiers are accepted directly (e.g., com.apple.Preferences).
• Human-readable names are resolved when possible (e.g., Settings).
• Built-in aliases include Settings for both platforms.

iOS notes

• Input commands (press, type, scroll, etc.) are supported only on simulators in v1 and use the XCTest runner.
• alert and scrollintoview use the XCTest runner and are simulator-only in v1.
• Real device support (including snapshots) is on the roadmap for iOS.

Testing

pnpm test

Useful local checks:

pnpm typecheck
pnpm test:unit
pnpm test:smoke

Build

pnpm build

Environment selectors:

• ANDROID_DEVICE=Pixel_9_Pro_XL or ANDROID_SERIAL=emulator-5554
• IOS_DEVICE="iPhone 17 Pro" or IOS_UDID=<udid>
• AGENT_DEVICE_IOS_BOOT_TIMEOUT_MS=<ms> to adjust iOS simulator boot timeout (default: 120000, minimum: 5000).

Test screenshots are written to:

• test/screenshots/android-settings.png
• test/screenshots/ios-settings.png

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Made at Callstack

agent-device is an open source project and will always remain free to use. Callstack is a group of React and React Native geeks. Contact us at hello@callstack.com if you need any help with these technologies or just want to say hi.