Argent is an agentic toolkit that gives your AI assistant direct access to iOS Simulators and Android Emulators. Ask it to tap a button, run a profiler or reproduce an issue manually - all from within your CLI, without switching context.

npx @swmansion/argent init

Capabilities

• Autonomous iOS and Android development - Allow your agent to work with iOS and Android apps on its own - let it build, open, interact with the app and debug it. Ask for reproducing issues, testing features manually, profiling your app and much more, without ever interrupting your work.
• UI interaction - Give your agent full control toolkit - tapping, swiping, pinching, typing, gestures, hardware buttons and all other gears included. Let it navigate your app exactly as a user would, without lifting a finger.
• Profiling with batteries included - Argent can perform and analyze both React-Native and Xcode Instruments profiling sessions. Get comprehensive summaries and ask to optimise your app where you find fit.
• Debugging and diagnostics - Let your agent inspect logs, capture crash reports, and reproduce failing states on the simulator, so you can jump straight to the fix.
• React Native out of the box - Argent works with React Native apps natively, so your agent can build, launch, and iterate on your RN project the same way it would any native app - no extra setup required.

Tip: Once installed, ask your assistant "What can Argent do?" - it will walk you through all capabilities available.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or later
• For iOS: macOS with Xcode installed
• For Android: Android SDK Platform Tools (adb) on PATH, and the Android Emulator package if you want to boot AVDs from Argent. Create AVDs via Android Studio or avdmanager.

Linux host: extra prerequisites for Android emulators

Argent runs Android emulators on Linux but the default install can be slow if a few host-side knobs aren't right. Cover these once and the experience matches macOS:

• KVM access. The emulator falls back to slow software emulation (TCG) without /dev/kvm. Make sure virtualization is enabled in BIOS/UEFI (vmx for Intel, svm for AMD in /proc/cpuinfo) and that your user can read/write /dev/kvm — on most distros that means joining the kvm group:

  sudo usermod -aG kvm "$USER"
  # log out and back in so the new group takes effect

• GPU mode (-gpu swiftshader on Linux, override available). The Android emulator's Linux GPU story is messy: -gpu auto frequently resolves to lavapipe (slow software Vulkan via host libvulkan, ~10× cold-boot regression on flagship hardware), and -gpu host silently produces a corrupted or black emulator window on hosts with non-trivial GL stacks — dual-GPU / Optimus laptops, NVIDIA + Mesa coexistence via libglvnd, Wayland sessions on hybrid graphics, headless / containerized hosts. The failure mode is invisible to argent's framebuffer-based screenshot tool, so an agent reports success while the developer sees a black window.

  Argent picks -gpu swiftshader on Linux for universal compatibility: it sidesteps the host GL stack entirely and renders via the emulator's bundled SwiftShader. On modern multi-core machines this is indistinguishably smooth from hardware-accelerated -gpu host (and far faster than lavapipe).

  Override with the ARGENT_EMULATOR_GPU_MODE env var if you've verified -gpu host works on your machine (typical single-GPU Mesa box with a healthy X session):

  ARGENT_EMULATOR_GPU_MODE=host argent ...

  Argent's boot-device preflight prints a warning if /dev/kvm isn't usable — the condition that causes a 10–50× TCG-vs-KVM slowdown.

• System image. Prefer the default or google_apis variants of x86_64 system images for headless agent workflows; google_apis_playstore adds noticeable boot-time CPU churn from Play services. Always pick x86_64 on Intel/AMD hosts — ARM images run via QEMU translation and are dramatically slower.

• AVD config. AVDs created via avdmanager create avd default to hw.gpu.enabled=no. Argent overrides this with an explicit -gpu arg at launch (so the on-disk config doesn't need editing). For the smoothest experience under heavy native builds (gradle compilations alongside the AVD), bump the AVD's RAM and CPU count — edit ~/.android/avd/<name>.avd/config.ini:

  hw.ramSize = 8192
  hw.cpu.ncore = 6
  vm.heapSize = 512

  Stock 2 GB / 4 vCPU AVDs can be CPU-starved into wedged-system_server states by a concurrent gradle/Kotlin compile.

• Headless / CI mode (ARGENT_EMULATOR_NO_WINDOW=1). Argent shows the emulator window by default so a local developer can see the AVD UI. In a headless context — CI runner, container, or a Wayland-only session where the emulator's bundled Qt has no wayland platform plugin and SIGABRTs on the crash-consent dialog — opt out by exporting ARGENT_EMULATOR_NO_WINDOW=1 before starting the tool-server. This appends -no-window to the spawn args, selecting qemu-system-x86_64-headless which doesn't need a Qt window. Argent's screencap-based screenshot tool reads the in-memory framebuffer correctly without a visible window.

Run init in your project

From your project root:

npx @swmansion/argent init

This command triggers an installation wizard which:

• Installs @swmansion/argent globally
• Detects your editor and registers the MCP server
• Copies skills, rules, and agent definitions into your workspace

Prefer a manual install?

npm install -g @swmansion/argent
argent init

CLI Reference

| Command | Description | | ------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | | argent init | Install globally and configure MCP in the current workspace | | argent install | Alias for init command | | argent update | Pull the latest version and refresh workspace configuration | | argent remove | Unregister the MCP server and uninstall the package | | argent uninstall | Alias for remove command | | argent mcp | Start MCP server instance, used internally by agent | | argent enable | Enable a predefined feature flag (--scope project for project-local) | | argent disable | Disable a feature flag (--scope project for project-local) | | argent flags | List available feature flags and their state |

Supported Editors

argent init auto-detects and configures MCP for:

| Editor | Config location | | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | Claude Code | .mcp.json (project) or ~/.claude.json (global) | | Cursor | .cursor/mcp.json (project) or ~/.cursor/mcp.json (global) | | VS Code | .vscode/mcp.json | | Windsurf | .windsurf/mcp.json | | Zed | .zed/settings.json | | Gemini CLI | .gemini/settings.json | | Codex CLI | .codex/config.yaml | | opencode | opencode.json (project) or ~/.config/opencode/opencode.json (global) |

Privacy

Argent does not collect or transmit any user data. No telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting.

• Argent integrates with your agent locally over MCP stdio.
• Its internal tools are not reachable from outside your machine.
• The only outbound network call we make is the version check against our public npm package, which sends no user data and fails gracefully if blocked.

License

Argent uses a mixed licensing model.

Source code is released under the Apache License 2.0.

Proprietary binaries (the per-platform bin/<platform>/simulator-server and bin/darwin/ax-service executables and the .dylib files in native-devtools-ios) are the intellectual property of Software Mansion S.A. and are licensed solely for use within this project. Decompiling, reverse-engineering, or redistributing them without explicit written permission is prohibited.

By using Argent, you acknowledge and agree to this structure. See LICENSE for full details.

Argent is created by Software Mansion

Since 2012 Software Mansion is a software agency with experience in building web and mobile apps. We are Core React Native Contributors and experts in dealing with all kinds of React Native issues. We can help you build your next dream product – Hire us.