mobile-harness

Why it's ranked here

The discipline is written down rather than implied. Each action is followed by a fresh look at the screen, blind action chains are forbidden, and the assistant must halt at login, payment, one-time codes or destructive consent unless the user authorised that exact step. Screen and web page text is labelled untrusted everywhere it matters, including the memory rules. For anyone pointing a model at a real handset, those guardrails are the hard part, and they ship under the MIT license with install recipes for three assistant runtimes.

What's good

Guidance is specific about failure. Tapping a hidden element raises a distinct error, scroll-until-found stops early when the view stops moving, and the Android guide explains how to tell its companion server apart from an iOS server that answers the same ping on the same port. A four-row table maps whether debugging access and the companion app are available to the correct connection mode, including the blocked case. Personal notes, credentials and per-app overrides live in one git-ignored folder, so updates never collide with user content.

Tradeoffs

The value depends on a separate library whose code is not in this repository, so the behaviour described here cannot be verified from these files alone. That library requires Python 3.11 to 3.13. Running JavaScript inside the phone browser works only on hosted devices. Local iPhone control accepts just one companion server type, and without debugging access the Android companion cannot be installed or configured. Each session begins by pulling the latest instructions from the remote repository, which means upstream text changes reach the assistant without review.

How to use it well

Fit it where an assistant already writes Python and you want repeatable phone tasks: QA passes on a test device, settings changes, or scripted browsing on a hosted handset. Register the whole folder, not just the entry file, because the guides reference each other by relative location. Pin the library versions if you care about reproducible runs, and keep the automatic update step only if you trust upstream edits. Write your own app notes in the local folder. It does not cover test assertions, reporting, or parallel scheduling across many devices.

Observed

License

MIT (LICENSE file and plugin manifest)

Form

Markdown instruction set; device control delegated to an external Python package

Language runtime

Python 3.11 to 3.13 required by the control library

Install surface

skills CLI via npx, pip into a repo-local venv, Codex skill symlink, Claude Code user-memory import, Claude plugin manifest

Platforms

Android over ADB or companion HTTP, iOS over companion HTTP, hosted cloud devices

Browser scripting

JavaScript execution in foreground Chrome on cloud devices only

Safety rules

Stops on credentials, payment and destructive consent; screen text treated as untrusted

Update model

Agent runs git pull --ff-only on the harness once per session