ios-simulate

ios-simulate is a skill for Claude Code from markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills. It costs 96 tokens per session (4,187 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A reference for controlling Apple's iOS Simulator from the command line. The Simulator is a computer program that runs an iPhone or iPad environment for testing apps without a physical device.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to list or boot simulators, install and remove apps, take screenshots, record videos, change appearance settings, and open URLs.
Why use it?
It removes the need to manage simulator devices and test actions manually through the graphical interface.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Needs its repository: it runs a file that does not travel with it, so clone the repository first. The line is ./scripts/asc-screenshots/manual-capture.sh.

Part of the apple-dev-skills plugin — 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents shipped together

Good fit Use it to list or boot simulators, install and remove apps, take screenshots, record videos, change appearance settings, and open URLs.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install

Getting it into your agent

It runs from inside its repository, so the clone comes first — what it calls does not travel with the file alone.

Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills
agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/ios-simulate

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install apple-dev-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ios-simulate

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/ios-simulate.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/ios-simulate)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/ios-simulate"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/ios-simulate.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 96 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 4,187 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00096 $0.04187
Opus 5 $0.00048 $0.02093
Sonnet 5 $0.00019 $0.00837
Haiku 4.5 $0.00010 $0.00419

Measured 5d ago against content hash 2a809365fe9e, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-08, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

ios-simulate scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 5d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

platforms/claude/skills/ios-simulate/SKILL.md · 714 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 714 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

iOS Simulate

iOS Simulator management, screenshot automation, and device control via xcrun simctl. Use for testing, screenshots, and simulator-based workflows.


Quick Reference

Task Command
List devices xcrun simctl list devices available
Boot simulator xcrun simctl boot "iPhone 17 Pro Max"
Screenshot xcrun simctl io booted screenshot output.png
Record video xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo output.mp4
Install app xcrun simctl install booted MyApp.app
Uninstall app xcrun simctl uninstall booted com.example.app
Set dark mode xcrun simctl ui booted appearance dark
Open URL xcrun simctl openurl booted https://example.com

Simulator Management

List Available Simulators

# All devices (including unavailable)
xcrun simctl list devices

# Only available devices
xcrun simctl list devices available

# JSON output (for scripting)
xcrun simctl list devices available -j

# Filter by device type
xcrun simctl list devices | grep "iPhone"

Boot and Shutdown

# Boot a specific device by name
xcrun simctl boot "iPhone 17 Pro Max"

# Boot by UDID
xcrun simctl boot 4C6DD567-0C7E-476D-8946-8CA9A21A9452

# Wait for boot to complete
xcrun simctl bootstatus "iPhone 17 Pro Max" -b

# Shutdown
xcrun simctl shutdown "iPhone 17 Pro Max"

# Shutdown all simulators
xcrun simctl shutdown all

# Check if running
xcrun simctl list devices | grep "iPhone 17 Pro Max" | grep "Booted"

Create Custom Simulators

# List available device types
xcrun simctl list devicetypes

# List available runtimes
xcrun simctl list runtimes

# Create custom simulator
xcrun simctl create "My iPhone 15" "iPhone 15" "iOS17.4"

# Delete simulator
xcrun simctl delete "My iPhone 15"

# Erase all content and settings
xcrun simctl erase "iPhone 17 Pro Max"

Open Simulator App

# Open Simulator.app
open -a Simulator

# Open with specific device
xcrun simctl boot "iPhone 17 Pro Max" && open -a Simulator

Read the full file on GitHub · 714 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 5d ago First seen · 714 lines · 96 tokens per session scan A 2a809365fe9e

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ios-simulate is a skill published in the GitHub repository markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills (5 stars, last pushed 9d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 96 tokens to every session and 4,187 once invoked, about $0.0005 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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