Connecting physical iOS and Android devices to Tart VMs for CI/CD testing

[ogezue]

Hi everyone 👋

I’m using Tart in a GitLab CI/CD setup with self-hosted macOS runners, and it’s been working great for running iOS and Android builds in isolated VMs.

I’d now like to run tests on physical iOS and Android devices directly from inside the Tart VMs — for example, using xcodebuild test on an iPhone connected to the host Mac.

So far, I tried connecting an iOS device to the host machine to see if it appears inside the VM, but it doesn’t. I haven’t found documentation or examples for this use case yet.

Questions / discussion points:

• Is there currently a way to forward a USB-connected physical device (iOS or Android) into a Tart VM?

• If not, is device passthrough something on the roadmap, or would it make sense as a feature request?

• Has anyone found a good workaround (e.g. via networked device access, remote debugging, or simulator bridging) to integrate physical device testing in Tart-based CI/CD setups?

Any insights or experience would be greatly appreciated — especially from anyone who’s tried integrating real devices into Tart workflows.

Thanks!

[edigaryev]

• Is there currently a way to forward a USB-connected physical device (iOS or Android) into a Tart VM?
• If not, is device passthrough something on the roadmap, or would it make sense as a feature request?

Please see #139.

• Has anyone found a good workaround (e.g. via networked device access, remote debugging, or simulator bridging) to integrate physical device testing in Tart-based CI/CD setups?

You can check out already existing USB-over-IP solutions like VirtualHere and others to see if they work for your use-case.