Mobilebox: Hosted Android MCP server

Cloud Android phones for AI agents, over MCP and REST. $0.01 a minute.

Mobilebox gives your AI agent a phone it can use. Claude Code, Codex, Cursor or your own agent loop creates a cloud Android 14 phone, reads the screen as numbered elements, taps, types, installs your APK, then parks or deletes the phone. One phone per task or pull request costs a few cents: $0.01 per phone-minute, billed per second.

• Measured, 2026-11-08 (method, scripts and CSV): a Mobilebox phone was ready for its first screenshot in 19.4 s (median of 10) and a 10-minute session cost $0.10. On a GitHub Actions runner, the same start took 20.3 s, against 50 s for the Android emulator with KVM and 813 s without it (one run).
• Fair comparison: in the same benchmark Limrun started in 0.98 s ($0.04 a minute on its $20 plan), and Clousd lists a lower price ($0.004 a minute, as published on 2026-11-10). All cloud phones for AI agents, compared.

Website · Docs · Quickstart · MCP registry

Phone screens are unedited API screenshots from one recorded run; steps and times are its MCP calls, from the home screen on. Playback shortened.

Ready time: create to ready, three runs on 2026-11-04 ( RUNS.md ).

Works with Claude Code Codex Cursor any MCP client

• Listed in the official MCP registry as dev.mobilebox/mobilebox, tool definitions rated A on Glama.
• Checked on every deploy: an end-to-end run on production that uses only the public docs (create, install, tap, type, park, resume, delete over REST and MCP).

Quickstart

1. Get a key. Sign up with GitHub ($2 of credit, 200 phone-minutes) and create an agent key in the dashboard.

export MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY=...   # keep it in your shell or secret manager, never in a prompt

2. Add Mobilebox to your agent.

claude mcp add --transport http mobilebox https://mobilebox.dev/mcp \

--header "Authorization: Bearer $MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY"

Codex, Cursor, a shared .mcp.json , other clients

Codex, ~/.codex/config.toml:

[mcp_servers.mobilebox]

url = "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp" bearer_token_env_var = "MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY"

Cursor: the Add to Cursor button above installs the URL alone and Cursor signs you in over OAuth, no key. Or .cursor/mcp.json with the key:

{ "mcpServers": { "mobilebox": { "url": "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${env:MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY}" } } } }

Claude Code, shared through a committed `.mcp.json` without the key in it. Keep "type": "http", or Claude Code treats the entry as a stdio server:

{ "mcpServers": { "mobilebox": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mobilebox.dev/mcp", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer ${MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY}" } } } }

Other clients: any MCP client with Streamable HTTP and a custom header. Hand-written clients also send Accept: application/json, text/event-stream. The registry entry is server.json.

3. Give it a task.

Use Mobilebox. Create a phone, open Settings and tell me which Android version it runs. Delete the phone at the end, even if a step fails.

Next: let your agent test the APK you just built, or run the same check in CI. No MCP client? curl/walkthrough.sh does the whole loop over REST (OpenAPI, reference).

Watch your agent

A real agent on a Mobilebox phone, recorded in the live view at real speed. One step fails, and the log says why.

Open a live view of any running phone and see every step as it happens: a cursor that moves to each target, a ripple for every tap, a trail for every swipe, the text as it is typed (dots in password fields), and a caption with its time for each step. Nothing depends on sound, and screen readers announce each caption.

npx mobilebox watch <phone_id>   # with MOBILESANDBOX_API_KEY set: opens the view in its own window

Over MCP, ask your agent to show you the phone: watch_phone returns the link (REST: POST /v1/phones/{id}/view). The dashboard has a Watch button on every running phone. The view is read-only and watching is free. Try it with watch/watch.sh; details in the API reference.

Tools

Phones, apps and the screen over MCP; REST adds binary APK upload, account balance and billed sessions. Sign in once with OAuth from any MCP client that supports it (Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code): add https://mobilebox.dev/mcp and approve. Or send your key as Authorization: Bearer.

All tools and actions (generated from the live tools/list ; CI fails when it drifts)

Actions for act: tap, long_press, swipe, scroll, scroll_to, type, key, back, home, open_app, close_app, wait, wait_for. Targets: {"text":"OK"} (best default), {"ref":3}, {"id":"com.app:id/login"}, {"desc":"Navigate up"}, `{"x":540,"y