using-ios

A guide for controlling real iPhones and iPads through a device connection. It covers screenshots, taps, swipes, typing, app installation and launching, interface inspection, file transfers, and coordinating device use.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to inspect and operate iOS or iPadOS apps, capture screens, install or stop apps, enter text, move files, and work with one or more shared test devices.
Why use it?
It helps developers test an iOS app on an actual device without manually performing every interaction. It also explains the required connection setup and how screen coordinates work.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/metahub-tech/agent-fleet/using-ios
Any agent
npx skills add metahub-tech/agent-fleet --skill using-ios
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/metahub-tech/agent-fleet

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 69 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,033 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan B 2 findings. Scan, not verified.
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 $0.00069 $0.03033
Opus 5 $0.00034 $0.01517
Sonnet 5 $0.00014 $0.00607
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00303

Measured 2d ago against content hash 952ba9fb85a8, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade B, and why

using-ios scanned grade B with 2 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 2d 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.

Sends data to an external URLmediumData exfiltration

A POST to an outside endpoint may be telemetry or may be exfiltration; either way the mod talks to somewhere, and you should know where.

curl -X POST --data-binary @bg.png \

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

curl -X POST --data-binary @bg.png \
platforms/ios/skills/using-ios/SKILL.md · 187 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 187 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Using ios-device

Drive one or more iOS/iPadOS devices via the ios-device MCP server (FastMCP, streamable-http on Tailscale, port 8769). The server runs on a macOS host (Xcode + WDA requirement), and reaches the device via WebDriverAgent over USB (pymobiledevice3 usbmux forward). 26 tools across 9 categories.

Mental model

[You / Agent]  -- streamable-http -->  [macOS host running ios-device MCP]:8769
                                              |
                                       pymobiledevice3 USB forward
                                              |
                                       WebDriverAgent on iOS device

You drive the SERVER. The server drives WDA. WDA drives the DEVICE. You don't touch the device directly. WDA must be running on the device before UI tools work (see docs/platforms/ios.md for Xcode build steps).

Critical patterns

Coordinates are points (WDA coordinate space)

get_screen_size returns the device's logical size in points (e.g. {width: 390, height: 844} for iPhone 14). take_screenshot returns a PNG at point resolution (1x), NOT at the device's physical pixel resolution. tap(x, y) uses the same point space. No scaling needed on your end — WDA already handles the logical-to-physical mapping.

get_screen_size                  # {"width": 390, "height": 844}
take_screenshot                  # PNG also at 390x844 points
tap(x=195, y=422)                # center of screen

tap / swipe / long_press — same naming as android-device

iOS uses touchscreens exactly like Android. Use tap, swipe, long_press — not click.

Keyboard: type_text vs press_key

What Tool Note
Type into a focused input type_text("hello") Routes via WDA /wda/keys → UIKit. Supports Unicode. Some custom text fields may not receive it — fall back to tap + clipboard paste if needed.
Physical buttons press_key(key="home") Supported: home, volume_up, volume_down, lock only. No adb-style KEYCODE mapping — iOS exposes only these four physical buttons via WDA.

Read the full file on GitHub · 187 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. 2d ago First seen · 187 lines · 69 tokens per session scan B 952ba9fb85a8

Subscribe to this mod's changes

using-ios is a skill published in the GitHub repository metahub-tech/agent-fleet (2 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 69 tokens to every session and 3,033 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it B with 2 findings (sends data to an external url, makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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