Argent README

Argent is an agentic toolkit that gives your AI assistant direct access to iOS Simulators, Android emulators and physical devices, TVs (Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV) and Electron/Chromium desktop and web apps. Ask it to tap a button, run a profiler or reproduce an issue manually - all from within your CLI, without switching context.

npx @swmansion/argent@latest init
# or, in a pnpm project (where npm's devEngines check may refuse to run npx):
pnpm dlx @swmansion/argent@latest init

Supported platforms

Argent drives a growing set of targets through a single toolkit, each with the right interaction model - touch, remote or mouse:

Capabilities

• Autonomous mobile, TV and desktop development - Allow your agent to work with iOS, Android, TV and Electron/web apps on its own - let it build, open, interact with the app and debug it. Ask for reproducing issues, testing features manually, profiling your app and much more, without ever interrupting your work.
• UI interaction - Give your agent the full control toolkit - tapping, swiping, pinching, typing, gestures and hardware buttons on mobile; the directional remote on TV; mouse, scroll and drag on desktop/web. Let it navigate your app exactly as a user would, without lifting a finger.
• Record & replay flows - Capture a sequence of interactions once and let your agent replay it deterministically, so manual repros and smoke tests become repeatable.
• Visual regression - Diff two screenshots (or a saved baseline against a live capture) with OCR- and font-aware comparison to catch unintended UI changes.
• Profiling with batteries included - Argent can perform and analyze React Native (Hermes), React DevTools and native (Xcode Instruments / Android Perfetto) profiling sessions - down to fiber renders, CPU hotspots and cross-correlated commit-vs-hang reports. Get comprehensive summaries and ask to optimise your app where you find fit.
• Debugging and diagnostics - Let your agent inspect logs, capture network traffic (JS fetch and native), evaluate JS in the running app, walk the native UIKit and React component trees, and reproduce failing states - so you can jump straight to the fix.
• Desktop & web control - For Electron and Chromium apps your agent can drive tabs, read and write cookies and storage, walk the DOM and inspect network over the Chrome DevTools Protocol.
• React Native out of the box - Argent works with React Native apps natively, so your agent can build, launch, and iterate on your RN project the same way it would any native app - no extra setup required.

Tip: Once installed, ask your assistant "What can Argent do?" - it will walk you through all capabilities available.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20.12 or later
• For iOS / tvOS: macOS with Xcode installed (Apple TV uses tvOS simulators — Xcode downloads the tvOS runtime on demand)
• For Android / Android TV: Android SDK Platform Tools (adb) on PATH, and the Android Emulator package if you want to boot AVDs from Argent. Create AVDs via Android Studio or avdmanager.
• For Fire TV (Vega): the Vega SDK (vega CLI) on PATH
• For Electron / Chromium: nothing extra to control an already-running app - just launch it with --remote-debugging-port, or let Argent spawn your Electron app for you

Linux host: extra prerequisites for Android emulators

Argent runs Android emulators on Linux but the default install can be slow if a few host-side knobs aren't right. Cover these once and the experience matches macOS:

• KVM access. The emulator falls back to slow software emulation (TCG) without /dev/kvm. Make sure virtualization is enabled in BIOS/UEFI (vmx for Intel, svm for AMD in /proc/cpuinfo) and that your user can read/write /dev/kvm — on most distros that means joining the kvm group:

  bash

  Copy

  sudo usermod -aG kvm "$USER"
  # log out and back in so the new group takes effect
  

• GPU mode (-gpu swiftshader on Linux, override available). The Android emulator's Linux GPU story is messy: -gpu auto frequently resolves to lavapipe (slow software Vulkan via host libvulkan, ~10× cold-boot regression on flagship hardware), and -gpu host silently produces a corrupted or black emulator window on hosts with non-trivial GL stacks — dual-GPU / Optimus laptops, NVIDIA + Mesa coexistence via libglvnd, Wayland sessions on hybrid graphics, headless / containerized hosts. The failure mode is invisible to argent's framebuffer-based screenshot tool, so an agent reports success while the developer sees a black window.

  Argent picks -gpu swiftshader on Linux for universal compatibility: it sidesteps the host GL stack entirely and renders via the emulator's bundled SwiftShader. On modern multi-core machines this is indistinguishably smooth from hardware-accelerated -gpu host (and far faster than lavapipe).

  Override with the ARGENT_EMULATOR_GPU_MODE env var if you've verified -gpu host works on your machine (typical single-GPU Mesa box with a healthy X session):

  bash

  Copy

  ARGENT_EMULATOR_GPU_MODE=host argent ...
  

  Argent's boot-device preflight prints a warning if /dev/kvm isn't usable — the condition that causes a 10–50× TCG-vs-KVM slowdown.

• System image. Prefer the default or google_apis variants of x86_64 system images for headless agent workflows; google_apis_playstore adds noticeable boot-time CPU churn from Play services. Always pick x86_64 on Intel/AMD hosts — ARM images run via QEMU translation and are dramatically slower.

• AVD config. AVDs created via avdmanager create avd default to hw.gpu.enabled=no. Argent overrides this with an explicit -gpu arg at launch (so the on-disk config doesn't need editing). For the smoothest experience under heavy native builds (gradle compilations alongside the AVD), bump the AVD's RAM and CPU count — edit ~/.android/avd/<name>.avd/config.ini:

  Code

  Copy

  hw.ramSize = 8192
  hw.cpu.ncore = 6
  vm.heapSize = 512
  

  Stock 2 GB / 4 vCPU AVDs can be CPU-starved into wedged-system_server states by a concurrent gradle/Kotlin compile.

• Headless / CI mode (ARGENT_EMULATOR_NO_WINDOW=1). Argent shows the emulator window by default so a local developer can see the AVD UI. In a headless context — CI runner, container, or a Wayland-only session where the emulator's bundled Qt has no wayland platform plugin and SIGABRTs on the crash-consent dialog — opt out by exporting ARGENT_EMULATOR_NO_WINDOW=1 before starting the tool-server. This appends -no-window to the spawn args, selecting qemu-system-x86_64-headless which doesn't need a Qt window. Argent's screencap-based screenshot tool reads the in-memory framebuffer correctly without a visible window.

Run init in your project

From your project root:

npx @swmansion/argent@latest init
# or, in a pnpm project (where npm's devEngines check may refuse to run npx):
pnpm dlx @swmansion/argent@latest init

This command triggers an installation wizard which:

• Installs @swmansion/argent globally
• Detects your editor and registers the MCP server
• Copies skills, rules, and agent definitions into your workspace

Prefer a manual install?

npm install -g @swmansion/argent
argent init

Share Argent with your team (committable install)

By default Argent installs globally. To version Argent with your repo so every teammate gets the same setup on npm install — no per-developer global install, no argent init — choose the local mode:

npx @swmansion/argent@latest init --local
# or, in a pnpm project:
pnpm dlx @swmansion/argent@latest init --local

Note: in a freshly pnpm init-ed project, npx itself may refuse to run (npm's devEngines check) — use the pnpm dlx form there.

This adds @swmansion/argent to your project's devDependencies and writes MCP configs that launch the project-local copy (node node_modules/@swmansion/argent/dist/cli.js mcp). Commit package.json + your lockfile, the generated MCP config (.mcp.json, .cursor/mcp.json, …), .argent/install.json, and the skills/rules/agents files. Teammates then just run npm install.

Pass --global to force the default mode in scripts; --local and --global are mutually exclusive. A non-interactive (--yes) run defaults to global unless the project already opted into local mode (a committed .argent/install.json, or @swmansion/argent declared in the project's own package.json).

In local mode the committed MCP config runs the project-local copy, so the bare argent command is not on teammates' PATH. Note that npm install builds Argent's native deps (tree-sitter) on each machine — prebuilt for macOS, Linux x64, and Windows x64; other targets (Linux arm64, Windows arm) compile from source and need a C/C++ toolchain.

CLI Reference

Supported Editors

argent init auto-detects and configures MCP for:

Privacy

Argent collects opt-out usage and diagnostic telemetry to help us prioritise features and fix what breaks.

You can opt out at any time:

argent telemetry disable   # check status with: argent telemetry status

For the full details — see the Argent Privacy Notice (Telemetry).

License

Argent uses a mixed licensing model.

Source code is released under the Apache License 2.0.

Proprietary binaries (the per-platform bin/<platform>/simulator-server and bin/darwin/ax-service executables and the .dylib files in native-devtools-ios) are the intellectual property of Software Mansion S.A. and are licensed solely for use within this project. Decompiling, reverse-engineering, or redistributing them without explicit written permission is prohibited.

By using Argent, you acknowledge and agree to this structure. See LICENSE for full details.

Argent is created by Software Mansion

Since 2012 Software Mansion is a software agency with experience in building web and mobile apps. We are Core React Native Contributors and experts in dealing with all kinds of React Native issues. We can help you build your next dream product – Hire us.