Appium + Qirabot

If you already run Appium, against a local server or a cloud device farm, Qirabot attaches to the driver you have. Element location becomes AI vision on the screenshot, so Flutter, React Native, WebViews, Unity views, and native screens are all automated the same way, and there is no UiAutomator or XCUITest selector maintenance.

from appium import webdriver
from appium.options.android import UiAutomator2Options
from qirabot import Qirabot

options = UiAutomator2Options()
options.platform_name = "Android"
options.device_name = "emulator-5554"
options.app_package = "com.android.settings"
options.app_activity = ".Settings"
driver = webdriver.Remote("http://localhost:4723", options=options)
bot = Qirabot().bind(driver)

bot.click("Wi-Fi settings")
result = bot.ai("Open Display settings and change font size to Large")
print(f"Success: {result.success}")
bot.close()
driver.quit()

Requires the extra:

uv pip install "qirabot[appium]"

The same works for iOS drivers (XCUITest options): bind() recognizes both Android and iOS Appium sessions.

CLI: selecting the Appium engine

Passing --appium-url switches the CLI from the built-in direct backends to your Appium server:

qirabot android "Clear all notifications" --appium-url http://localhost:4723
qirabot ios "..." --device "iPhone 15"      # simulator device type (selects Appium)

Note that the CLI's Appium iOS engine targets simulators: --device is a device type from xcrun simctl list devicetypes. Real iPhones are better served by the WDA-direct backend, which does not use Appium at all.

Recording the device screen

record_device=True uses Appium's session recording API, which works for both Android and iOS drivers:

bot = Qirabot(record_device=True).bind(driver)
bot.ai("run through the onboarding flow")
bot.stop_recording()   # call before driver.quit() — the video lives in the session

The video lands in report_dir/recording.mp4 and is embedded in the HTML run report.

Appium or the built-in backends?

	Appium engine	Built-in (adb / WDA)
Server required	yes	no
Device clouds (BrowserStack, Sauce…)	yes	no
Install on device	UiAutomator2/WDA via Appium	nothing (Android) / WDA (iOS)
Extra package	qirabot[appium]	none
Gestures	full Appium set	tap/swipe/keyevent level

As a rule of thumb: if you are already invested in Appium or need a device cloud, stay on Appium and add Qirabot on top. If you are starting fresh on local devices, the Android adb backend and iOS WDA backend involve fewer moving parts.

Related: Android backend · iOS backend