wtf is mobai-ci?

mobai-ci is a command line tool for running automated tests on mobile apps as part of a continuous integration pipeline, meaning the checks that run automatically every time code is pushed to a repository. It plays back short scripted sequences of taps, swipes, and checks called flows against a real or simulated phone screen, then produces a report that shows what happened, including a screenshot and a snapshot of the screen layout for any step that failed, so a developer can see why a test broke rather than just that it did. There are four ways to get a device to run these flows against. Two are free: an iOS simulator booted directly on a macOS build runner, and an Android emulator booted on a Linux build runner. Two require a paid MobAI account: running the flows on a real device hosted in a cloud device farm service like BrowserStack, Sauce Labs, or AWS Device Farm, or running them against a physical device connected to your own computer over a network tunnel while the automation itself runs elsewhere. Flows are written as short text files, either in MobAI's own simple format or in the format used by an existing tool called Maestro, which mobai-ci also understands, so teams that already have Maestro flows do not need to rewrite them. A flow describes steps like launching the app fresh, waiting for a piece of text to appear on screen, tapping it, and taking a screenshot. Flows can also accept parameters, so the same flow can be pointed at a staging environment or a production environment without editing the file. The tool installs as a GitHub Action for teams using GitHub Actions, or as a plain shell script install for any other environment, and it supports macOS and Linux on both Intel and Arm processors. The project includes ready-made example workflow files for each of the four device paths, covering iOS simulator, Android emulator, cloud device farm, and bring-your-own-device setups.