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Getting started

Install Conductor, point it at a simulator or emulator, and run your first command in under a minute.

Conductor is a token-efficient CLI that lets AI agents (or you) drive iOS simulators, Android emulators, and Playwright-managed web browsers. It's a TypeScript reimplementation and partial fork of Maestro — but it bundles its own native drivers, so there's no second CLI to install, no Java to manage, and no external service to talk to.

This page walks through install, prerequisites, and your first command.

Install

npm install -g @houwert/conductor

That's it. Conductor is published to npm as @houwert/conductor and ships with the iOS XCTest driver, Android instrumentation driver, and a thin Playwright wrapper for web — all bundled.

To verify the install:

conductor --help
conductor --version

Prerequisites

Conductor doesn't reimplement Xcode or the Android SDK — it drives them. What you need depends on which platforms you want to target.

Platform Required
iOS Xcode (full install, not just CLT) with the iOS Simulator runtimes you want to drive.
Android Android SDK with adb on PATH. Either an emulator from avdmanager or a wired-up device.
Web Run conductor install-web once after install — fetches the Playwright browser binary.

For Node.js itself, any modern LTS works; the package targets the active Node LTS line.

You don't need to authenticate Conductor or sign up for anything. There is no account.

Your first command

Boot a simulator (any iOS Simulator or Android emulator works) and try:

# iOS
conductor launch-app com.apple.Preferences
conductor tap-on "General"
conductor assert-visible "About"

# Android
conductor launch-app com.android.settings
conductor tap-on "Network"

Conductor talks to the running simulator via its bundled driver. The first command on a new device takes a moment while the driver is installed; subsequent commands are fast.

What the CLI is for

Conductor is designed to be called from inside an AI coding session. The most common pattern looks like this:

  1. An agent edits the app source code.
  2. The agent runs conductor launch-app … and conductor tap-on … to drive the simulator and verify the change.
  3. conductor inspect and conductor capture-ui give the agent a structured snapshot of the screen so it knows what to do next.

It can also be scripted by humans, used in CI, or driven from any tool that can spawn a subprocess. There's no Claude-specific glue baked in — you wire it into your agent however you like (a custom CLAUDE.md, a project skill, a slash command — whatever you prefer).

Where to go next

  • Concepts — sessions, drivers, devices, and the daemon.
  • Command catalogue — every command grouped by purpose.
  • Flows — run YAML scripts and shard them across booted devices.
  • Web testing — drive Playwright the same way you drive a phone.
  • Privacy — what Conductor does and doesn't send anywhere (spoiler: nothing).