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Use simulator hardware commands for device-level controls that are not tied to a specific app UI.

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flowdeck simulator button

Press a simulator hardware button.

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Button Options

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Supported Buttons

  • home
  • swipe-home
  • lock
  • siri
  • applepay
  • app-switcher
  • side-button
  • volumeup
  • volumedown
Volume buttons may not be supported by the simulator HID backend on every runtime.

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flowdeck simulator memory-warning

Simulate a memory warning, matching Simulator.app’s Debug > Simulate Memory Warning action.

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Memory Warning Options

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flowdeck simulator ca-debug

Toggle CoreAnimation debug overlays on a simulator.

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CoreAnimation Debug Options

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CoreAnimation Debug Values

  • blended
  • copies
  • misaligned
  • offscreen
  • slow-animations
State accepts on or off.

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flowdeck simulator appearance

Get or set the simulator appearance (light or dark). Mirrors flowdeck simulator orientation: get is the default subcommand, set writes a value.

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flowdeck simulator appearance get

Print the current appearance for the targeted simulator. Outputs one of light, dark, unsupported, or unknown (passed through from simctl ui ... appearance).

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flowdeck simulator appearance set

Set the appearance to light or dark.

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Supported Values

  • light
  • dark
Older flowdeck ui simulator button, flowdeck ui simulator set-appearance (also accepts appearance as an alias), and flowdeck ui simulator orientation commands still work for compatibility, but new scripts should use flowdeck simulator ....

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flowdeck simulator keyboard

Control simulator keyboard settings. Currently exposes the hardware keyboard subcommand, which connects or disconnects the simulated hardware keyboard. This mirrors Simulator.app’s I/O > Keyboard > Connect Hardware Keyboard toggle and is equivalent to simctl ui <udid> keyboard operations.

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flowdeck simulator keyboard hardware

Connect or disconnect the simulator hardware keyboard. The state argument accepts on/off, enabled/disabled, true/false, 1/0, or connected/disconnected.

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JSON Output

With --json, simulator keyboard hardware reports the requested state and resolved UDID:
Disconnecting the hardware keyboard (off) forces the software keyboard to appear when a text field gains focus — useful for testing keyboard UI and text-entry flows. Connect it back (on) to type via the host keyboard.