conductor-device-setup

name

conductor-device-setup

description

Boot, list, and manage devices and app installs for the conductor CLI — iOS simulators, Android emulators, tvOS simulators, and Playwright web browsers — plus sessions, the warm-driver daemon, and the parallel device pool. Use when starting or stopping a simulator/emulator/browser, installing or launching an app, setting up the web driver, attaching to an already-running browser over CDP (e.g. an Electron app / its webviews), keeping the driver warm, or coordinating multiple devices for parallel agents.

Conductor — device & app setup

Get a device running and an app installed before you drive it. Start here when nothing is booted yet.

Orient first

conductor workspace info     # detected project type, bundle IDs, devices, Metro port — best first call
conductor list-devices       # booted + available devices
conductor foreground-app     # bundle id of the app currently in front
conductor list-apps          # installed app ids / package names

Devices

Command	Purpose
conductor start-device --platform <ios|android|tvos|web>	Boot a simulator/emulator or start the web driver
conductor start-device --os-version <n> --device-type <name>	Pick OS version + device type (creates if needed)
conductor stop-device [<name-or-id>] [--all]	Shut down device(s)
conductor delete-device <name-or-id> [--all]	Delete simulator(s)/AVD(s)/web session(s)
conductor set-location --lat <n> --lng <n>	Set GPS coordinates
conductor set-orientation <portrait|landscape>	Set orientation
conductor set-viewport [<w> <h>] [--preset mobile|tablet|desktop]	Resize web viewport (web only)
conductor install-web [--check] [browser]	Install a Playwright browser (chromium/firefox/webkit); --check = status

Attach to an existing browser (CDP)

Instead of launching its own browser, the web driver can attach to one that's already running and exposes CDP over a remote-debugging port — e.g. an Electron app started with --remote-debugging-port, where each window / webview is a separate page target you can drive independently.

Command	Purpose
conductor web-targets --cdp-url <url>	List the controllable page targets the browser exposes (id, url, title) + a paste-ready bind command for each
conductor --device web:<browser>:<label> --cdp-url <url> --cdp-target <id> <cmd>	Bind a session to one target; the attachment persists so later commands for that --device don't need the flags

Use a distinct fully-qualified --device web:chromium:<label> per target (a bare web gets an auto-generated sub-id instead). Each target is its own session, so several webviews can be driven concurrently. Only type=page targets are controllable. See Web testing → Attaching to an existing browser.

App lifecycle

Command	Purpose
conductor install-app <path>	Install .app / .ipa / .apk
conductor launch-app <appId>	Launch app (saved to session); --no-stop-app, --argument key=value
conductor stop-app [<appId>]	Stop app
conductor uninstall-app <appId>	Uninstall app
conductor copy-app <bundleId> --from <id> --to <id>	Copy an installed app between iOS simulators
conductor download-app <appId> --output <path>	Download installed app binary

⚠️ Destructive flags — ask the user first

conductor clear-state [<appId>], launch-app --clear-state, and launch-app --clear-keychain wipe app data and sign the user out, and can't be undone without their credentials. Never use them to "reset focus" or clear navigation — relaunch without the flag, or navigate out with back / Menu. If you genuinely need one, ask the human first.

Sessions, daemon & device pool

A session remembers the last device + app so you don't re-specify them. Parallel agents each get their own --session <name> so they don't collide.

Command	Purpose
conductor session [--clear] [--list]	Show, clear, or list sessions
conductor daemon-start	Start the per-session background daemon (keeps the driver warm — do this for any multi-step session)
conductor daemon-status	Show daemon status
conductor daemon-stop [--all]	Stop this session's daemon (--all = every session)
conductor device-pool --list	List devices + pool status
conductor device-pool --acquire	Claim a free device (prints id)
conductor device-pool --release <id>	Release a device back to the pool

Don't leave a daemon running when you're done — daemon-stop it.

Tips

• --device <id> / --device-name <name> targets a device; --platform scopes by platform.
• Add --json for machine-readable output.
• conductor <command> --help for exact flags.