mobilecli

A universal command-line tool for managing iOS and Android devices, simulators, emulators and apps from Mobile Next.

Features 🚀

• Device Management: List, manage, interactive with connected mobile devices
• Cross-Platform Support: Works with iOS physical devices, iOS simulators, Android devices, and Android emulators
• Emulator/Simulator Control: Boot and shutdown emulators and simulators programmatically
• Screenshot Capture: Take screenshots from any connected device with format options
• Multiple Output Formats: Save screenshots as PNG or JPEG with quality control
• Screencapture video streaming: Stream mjpeg/h264 video directly from device
• Device Control: Reboot devices, tap screen coordinates, press hardware buttons
• App Management: Launch, terminate, install, uninstall, list, and get foreground apps
• Filesystem: Push, pull, list, mkdir, and rm files on-device or in app containers (Android, iOS Simulator)
• Crash Reports: List and fetch crash reports from iOS and Android devices

🎯 Platform Support

| Platform | Supported | |----------|:---------:| | iOS Real Device | ✅ | | iOS Simulator | ✅ | | Android Real Device | ✅ | | Android Emulator | ✅ |

Installation 📦

Prerequisites 📋

• Android SDK with adb in PATH (for Android device support)
• Xcode Command Line Tools (for iOS simulator support on macOS)

Run instantly with npx

npx mobilecli@latest

Install globally with npm

npm install -g mobilecli@latest

Install from Source 🛠️

git clone https://github.com/mobile-next/mobilecli.git
cd mobilecli
make build

Install Dependencies

🍎 For iOS Simulator Support

Xcode is required. Make sure you have it installed with the runtimes relevant for you installed. You will have to create Simulators and have them booted before mobilecli can use them.

mobilecli will automatically install an agent on the device that is required for functions such as tapping on elements, pressing buttons and streaming screen capture.

🤖 For Android Support

# Install Android SDK and ensure adb is in PATH
# Download from: https://developer.android.com/studio/command-line/adb
# or
brew install --cask android-platform-tools

Usage

List Connected Devices 🔍

# List all online devices and simulators
mobilecli devices

# List all devices including offline emulators and simulators
mobilecli devices --include-offline

Example output:

[
  {
    "id": "12345678-1234567890ABCDEF",
    "name": "iPhone 15",
    "platform": "ios",
    "type": "real",
    "state": "online"
  },
  {
    "id": "Pixel_6",
    "name": "Pixel 6",
    "platform": "android",
    "type": "emulator",
    "state": "online"
  },
  {
    "id": "iPhone_13",
    "name": "iPhone 13",
    "platform": "ios",
    "type": "simulator",
    "state": "offline"
  }
]

Note: Offline emulators and simulators can be booted using the mobilecli device boot command.

Take Screenshots 📸

# Take a PNG screenshot (default)
mobilecli screenshot --device <device-id>

# Take a JPEG screenshot with custom quality
mobilecli screenshot --device <device-id> --format jpeg --quality 80

# Save to specific path
mobilecli screenshot --device <device-id> --output screenshot.png

# Output to stdout
mobilecli screenshot --device <device-id> --output -

Stream Screen 🎥

mobilecli screencapture --device <device-id> --format mjpeg | ffplay -

Note that screencapture is one way. You will have to use io tap commands to tap on the screen.

Device Control 🎮

# Boot an offline emulator or simulator
mobilecli device boot --device <device-id>

# Shutdown a running emulator or simulator
mobilecli device shutdown --device <device-id>

# Reboot a device
mobilecli device reboot --device <device-id>

# Tap at coordinates (x,y)
mobilecli io tap --device <device-id> 100,200

# Long press at coordinates (x,y) with optional duration in milliseconds
mobilecli io longpress --device <device-id> 100,200
mobilecli io longpress --device <device-id> 100,200 --duration 2000

# Press hardware buttons
mobilecli io button --device <device-id> HOME
mobilecli io button --device <device-id> VOLUME_UP
mobilecli io button --device <device-id> POWER

# Send text
mobilecli io text --device <device-id> 'hello world'

Supported Hardware Buttons

• HOME - Home button
• BACK - Back button (Android only)
• POWER - Power button
• VOLUME_UP, VOLUME_DOWN - Volume up and down
• DPAD_UP, DPAD_DOWN, DPAD_LEFT, DPAD_RIGHT, DPAD_CENTER - D-pad controls (Android only)

App Management 📱

# List installed apps on device
mobilecli apps list --device <device-id>

# Get currently foreground app
mobilecli apps foreground --device <device-id>

# Launch an app
mobilecli apps launch <bundle-id> --device <device-id>

# Terminate an app
mobilecli apps terminate <bundle-id> --device <device-id>

# Install an app (.apk for Android, .ipa for iOS, .zip for iOS Simulator)
mobilecli apps install <path> --device <device-id>

# Uninstall an app
mobilecli apps uninstall <bundle-id> --device <device-id>

Example output for apps foreground:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": {
    "packageName": "com.example.app",
    "appName": "Example App",
    "version": "1.0.0"
  }
}

Filesystem 📂

Access files on the device or inside an app's data container. Currently supported on Android and iOS Simulator.

# Get the data container path of an app (Android)
mobilecli apps path <bundle-id> --device <device-id>

# List files at any absolute path (defaults to device root if omitted)
mobilecli fs ls --device <device-id>
mobilecli fs ls --device <device-id> /sdcard
mobilecli fs ls --device <device-id> /sdcard/Download

# List files inside an app's data container
mobilecli fs ls --device <device-id> com.example.app
mobilecli fs ls --device <device-id> com.example.app /Documents

# Pull a file from the device to local disk
mobilecli fs pull --device <device-id> /sdcard/recording.mp4 ./recording.mp4

# Pull a file from an app's private container
mobilecli fs pull --device <device-id> /data/user/0/com.example.app/files/db.sqlite ./db.sqlite

# Push a file to the device
mobilecli fs push --device <device-id> ./config.json /sdcard/config.json

# Push a file into an app's private container
mobilecli fs push --device <device-id> ./config.json /data/user/0/com.example.app/files/config.json

# Create a directory
mobilecli fs mkdir --device <device-id> /sdcard/myfolder

# Create a directory and all parent directories
mobilecli fs mkdir --device <device-id> -p /sdcard/a/b/c
mobilecli fs mkdir --device <device-id> -p /data/user/0/com.example.app/files/cache/v2

# Remove a file
mobilecli fs rm --device <device-id> /sdcard/old_file.txt

# Remove a directory recursively
mobilecli fs rm --device <device-id> -r /sdcard/myfolder
mobilecli fs rm --device <device-id> -r /data/user/0/com.example.app/files/cache

Example output for apps path:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": {
    "path": "/data/user/0/com.example.app"
  }
}

Example output for fs ls:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": [
    {
      "name": "files",
      "path": "/data/user/0/com.example.app/files",
      "size": 4096,
      "modTime": "2026-05-11T19:20:00Z",
      "isDir": true
    },
    {
      "name": "shared_prefs",
      "path": "/data/user/0/com.example.app/shared_prefs",
      "size": 4096,
      "modTime": "2026-05-11T12:49:00Z",
      "isDir": true
    }
  ]
}

Notes:

• Paths under /data/user/ are accessed via run-as, so the app must be debuggable.
• Pushing to /data/user/ stages the file through /data/local/tmp/ then copies it into the container.
• Pulling binary files (images, databases, DEX files) is fully supported and binary-safe on all platforms.

Agent Management 🤖

On iOS, the on-device agent is required for touch input (taps, swipes, button presses), screen capture streaming, and UI tree inspection. These capabilities are not available through standard iOS tooling without an agent running on the device.

On Android, most features work without the agent, but installing it enables non-ASCII text input (e.g. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, emoji) which is not possible through adb alone.

# Check if the agent is installed on a device
mobilecli agent status --device <device-id>

# Install the agent
mobilecli agent install --device <device-id>

# Force reinstall the agent
mobilecli agent install --device <device-id> --force

# Install on a real iOS device (requires provisioning profile)
mobilecli agent install --device <device-id> --provisioning-profile /path/to/profile.mobileprovision

Example output for agent status:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": {
    "message": "Agent version 0.0.12 is installed on device",
    "agent": {
      "version": "0.0.12",
      "bundleId": "com.mobilenext.devicekit-iosUITests.xctrunner"
    }
  }
}

Crash Reports 💥

# List crash reports from a device
mobilecli device crashes list --device <device-id>

# Get a specific crash report by ID
mobilecli device crashes get <crash-id> --device <device-id>

Example output for crashes list:

{
  "status": "ok",
  "data": [
    {
      "processName": "ShareExtension",
      "timestamp": "2026-01-24-195529",
      "id": "ShareExtension-2026-01-24-195529.ips"
    }
  ]
}

Note: On iOS real devices, crash reports are fetched via the Apple crashreport service. On iOS simulators, they are read from ~/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/. On Android, crashes are parsed from adb logcat -b crash.

Remote Devices ☁️

# Allocate a remote iOS device
mobilecli remote allocate --platform ios --version ">=18" --name "iPhone*" --wait

# Allocate a remote Android device (exact OS version)
mobilecli remote allocate --platform android --version 14 --wait

# List available remote devices
mobilecli remote list-devices

# Release an allocated remote device
mobilecli remote release --device <device-id>

HTTP API 🔌

mobilecli provides an http interface for all the functionality that is available through command line. As a matter of fact, it is preferable to use mobilecli as a webserver, so it can cache and keep tunnels alive, speeding up your interactions with the mobile device or simulator/emulator.

For the full list of available JSON-RPC methods and their parameters, see the OpenRPC specification.

# Start the server (default port 12000)
mobile server start

curl http://localhost:12000/rpc -XPOST -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0", "id": 1, "method": "devices", "params": {}}'
curl http://localhost:12000/rpc -XPOST -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0", "id": 1, "method": "screenshot", "params": {"deviceId": "your-device-id"}}'

## WebSocket Support 🔌

***mobilecli*** includes a WebSocket server that allows multiple requests over a single connection using the same JSON-RPC 2.0 format as the HTTP API.

```bash
# Start the server (default port 12000)
mobilecli server start

# Connect and send requests using wscat
wscat -c ws://localhost:12000/ws
> {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"devices","params":{}}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"result":[...]}
> {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"method":"screenshot","params":{"deviceId":"your-device-id"}}
< {"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":2,"result":{...}}

Note: screencapture is not supported over WebSocket - use the HTTP /rpc endpoint for video streaming.

Platform-Specific Notes

iOS Real Devices

• Requires the on-device agent. Install it with mobilecli agent install --device <device-id> --provisioning-profile /path/to/profile.mobileprovision. A valid Apple provisioning profile is needed to re-sign the agent for your device.

Development 👩‍💻

Building 🛠️

Please refer to (docs/TESTING.md) for further instructions regarding testing mobilecli locally.

make lint
make build
make test

Support 💬

For issues and feature requests, please use the GitHub Issues page.

Be sure to join our slack channel today 💜

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