Interface
iOS Simulator
Run an iOS Simulator inside the inspector, drive it with the pointer and keyboard, and let agents launch, tap and check your app with termio sim.
The Simulator pane shows one iOS Simulator, live, in the inspector beside your
sessions. You use it with the pointer and the Mac keyboard. Agents drive devices
through termio sim, and when an agent drives the device the pane shows, you see
each tap as it happens and can take over at any point.
The pane needs a Mac with Apple silicon and macOS 15 or later. On other Macs the pane menu doesn’t offer it. It also needs Xcode with an iOS runtime downloaded. When that’s missing, the pane says what to do: install Xcode, accept its license, or download the iOS platform.
Open the pane
Choose iOS Simulator from the pane menu in the selected session’s header. The pane opens on the device you used last, and boots it if it was shut down.
The device menu at the top left switches devices. Booted devices are listed first, and choosing a shut-down one boots it. The same menu holds New Simulator, Restart, Shut Down, Rename…, Erase All Content and Settings… and Delete….
Use it yourself
Click and drag on the screen to touch it. Type on the Mac keyboard to type into the device.
The header holds the controls a pointer can’t reach:
- Home and Rotate Right.
- Save Screenshot to Desktop and Record Screen to Desktop.
- Select Element: pick an element on screen to see its type, label and accessibility traits. The card it opens can copy the element or add it to the selected session’s prompt with Add to Chat, so an agent can tap it.
- Annotate: draw on a screenshot with a pen, a rectangle or an arrow.
- More (
…): the other hardware buttons, zoom, light or dark appearance, a clean status bar, slow animations, the frame rate, the app’s logs, and the on-screen keyboard. Items that have a shortcut in Simulator.app show it, and it works while the screen has focus.
A screenshot you take stays under the screen as a card. From it you can preview, annotate, copy the image, add it to the selected session with Add to Chat, or move it to the Trash.
Let agents drive it
The first time an agent asks for a device, Termio asks you: Allow agents to use iPhone 17? Agents can then control that simulator and take screenshots of its entire screen, so don’t sign in to real accounts on it. Termio remembers each device you allow. If you don’t allow it, the agent’s next command asks again.
An agent running in a Termio session drives a device with termio sim:
termio sim attach --device "iPhone 17"
xcodebuild -scheme MyApp -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 17' \
-derivedDataPath build build
termio sim launch build/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/MyApp.app
termio sim inspect
termio sim tap --label "Continue"
termio sim text "hello@example.com" && termio sim key return
termio sim screenshotattach opens the pane on the device, boots it if needed, and answers as soon as
the device is drawing. Run it before the build, so the device boots while Xcode
compiles.
Without --device, a command uses the first of these that is booted:
- The device this session used last.
- The device the pane shows, unless another session is driving it.
- A device no other session is driving.
- Any device.
When nothing is booted, name a device with attach --device.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
list | Lists simulators; * marks the one the pane shows |
attach, detach | Opens the pane on a device, or closes the live view and leaves the device running |
launch | Installs a built .app and launches it, replacing a running copy |
open-url | Opens a URL or a deep link |
inspect | Prints the frontmost app’s accessibility tree, with frames in device points |
tap | Taps at X Y in device points, or the element whose label contains --label |
swipe, touch-path, touch2-path | Drags one finger, follows a path, or pinches and rotates with two |
text, key | Types into the focused field, or presses a key or an editing command |
button, rotate, keyboard | Presses a hardware button, turns the device, or shows or hides the on-screen keyboard |
screenshot | Saves the screen as a PNG and prints its path |
logs, crash-report | Prints the app’s recent log, or summarises its latest crash |
Read the screen with inspect before tapping something you haven’t located, and
use screenshot for colour, images and layout. termio sim <command> --help
lists a command’s options. The rest of the CLI is in
Command-line tool.
The inspector
Browse files, edit them with syntax highlighting, read the git diff, and search the project — on this Mac or on the machine the session runs on, without leaving the terminal.
Appearance
Set your terminal theme and font, tune the cursor and window, and find the rest of Termio’s settings — all in a familiar macOS settings window.