@simular-ai/simulang

CLI for running Simulang scripts written in JavaScript or TypeScript, with full access to @simular-ai/simulang-js and the standard Node runtime.

Requires Node.js 22.18+.

Install

npm install -g @simular-ai/simulang

A copy of @simular-ai/simulang-js is bundled, so nothing else is needed.

First run on macOS

macOS gates the APIs simulang-js drives behind three permissions, granted per host app — the terminal or IDE you launch simulang from (Terminal, iTerm, Cursor, VS Code, …):

• Screen Recording — for Screen.screenshot() and any vision-grounded action.
• Accessibility — for the AX tree, AX actions, and window control.
• Input Monitoring — for synthesized mouse and keyboard events to actually reach the foreground app.

Run this once, from the terminal/IDE you'll use:

simulang setup

It triggers each permission's system prompt one at a time. macOS will pop up a dialog for each, automatically add the requesting host to the corresponding System Settings pane, and offer an Open System Settings button — just toggle the entry on. The setup command then re-checks and reports what's still pending.

Re-run simulang setup any time you switch terminals, upgrade Node, or want to confirm everything is still granted. If a script silently does nothing (clicks not landing, screenshots all-black), missing permissions are almost always the cause — re-run setup.

First run on Windows

Windows has no system-wide accessibility prompt, but two things can bite on the first run:

• The bundled native .node binary may be marked as downloaded and blocked by SmartScreen. If simulang run fails with a load error, run PowerShell Get-ChildItem -Recurse <node_modules path> | Unblock-File against the simulang install directory.
• If your script targets an elevated app, launch your terminal as Administrator.

Usage

simulang run hello.ts           # run a script
simulang run --interactive      # Node REPL with simulang-js pre-imported (alias: -i)
simulang which hello.ts         # show which simulang-js a script would resolve
simulang --version              # prints the CLI version + the bundled simulang-js version

Scripts can be .ts, .mts, .js, .mjs, or .simulang — TypeScript is stripped natively by Node, no build step. The .simulang suffix is supported for clarity in workflows that mix shell scripts with simulang scripts, but .ts / .mts are recommended since editors and tsc recognize them out of the box. Example:

import { App, FocusPolicy, Visibility } from '@simular-ai/simulang-js'

App.defaultBrowser().open('https://example.com', FocusPolicy.Steal, Visibility.Show, true)

In the REPL, every simulang-js export (App, Key, FocusPolicy, …) is pre-loaded as a global, and the full namespace is also available as simulang.

Using with Claude Code

Run once to install a Claude Code skill that teaches Claude how to use simulang:

simulang init-claude              # user-level, into ~/.claude/skills/simulang/
simulang init-claude --project    # project-local, into <cwd>/.claude/skills/simulang/
simulang init-claude --check      # report whether the installed skill is up to date

Safe to re-run.

Picking a simulang-js version

The bundled copy is used by default. To override:

simulang run --simulang-js=0.2.1 <script>        # specific version (cached after first install)
simulang run --simulang-js=latest <script>       # latest from the registry
simulang run --simulang-js=/path/to/simulang-js <script>   # local checkout

You can also set SIMULANG_JS in the environment, or npm install @simular-ai/simulang-js next to your script for a per-project pin. If none of the above is set, the CLI's own bundled copy is used.

Use simulang which to see which copy a script resolves to.

Authentication

Scripts that hit hosted services need an OpenRouter API key. Set OPENROUTER_API_KEY in your environment before running a script:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=...
simulang run <script>

simulang run prints a warning to stderr when OPENROUTER_API_KEY is unset, but does not refuse to run — scripts that don't hit hosted services work without it.

Development

git clone https://github.com/simular-ai/simulang-cli
cd simulang-cli
npm install
npm run build          # tsc → dist/
npm link               # exposes `simulang` on PATH
simulang run examples/hello.ts

Other scripts: npm run typecheck, npm run lint, npm run format.

To test against a local simulang-js checkout:

simulang run --simulang-js=/path/to/simulang-js examples/hello.ts

License

MIT — see LICENSE.