ios-simulator

iOS Simulator is a developer-workflow skill for driving Apple's iOS Simulator through the xcrun simctl command-line tool. It solves the problem of scripting and automating Simulator-based app testing: managing device lifecycle, installing and launching apps, and exercising system behaviors that would otherwise require manual interaction, while also clarifying which behaviors genuinely require physical hardware.

The skill documents a broad command surface: listing/creating/booting/shutting down/erasing/deleting simulator devices and runtimes, using bootstatus as a readiness gate in CI, installing .app bundles and launching or terminating apps by bundle ID (including console output streaming and launch arguments), and locating app/data/shared-group container paths. Testing workflows cover local push-notification payload simulation, location simulation (fixed coordinates, predefined scenarios, and custom waypoint routes), and privacy-permission grant/revoke/reset for services like photos, microphone, and location. Additional sections address screenshots and video recording, log streaming, compile-time simulator detection via targetEnvironment(simulator), and simulator limitations. A references/simctl-commands.md file holds full command tables, jq parsing examples, permission/status-bar values, and boot-recovery commands, and an evals/evals.json accompanies it.

It is aimed at iOS/Swift developers and CI engineers who script Simulator workflows, debug CoreSimulator boot failures, or need to decide when a physical device is required (for hardware, real APNs delivery, memory-pressure, or certain security behaviors). All commands operate on local simulator instances via official Apple tooling.