Setup guides › Windsurf
Let Windsurf use your iPhone.
Add Spatia to Windsurf and it can see your iPhone's screen and tap, type and scroll for you, through iPhone Mirroring. One click in the setup assistant, or the exact config, with nothing to install on the phone.
The Windsurf editor. Cascade, its agent, gets your iPhone as a tool.
What you need
- A Mac on macOS 15 Sequoia or later, with Windsurf installed.
- An iPhone on iOS 18 or later, on the same Apple Account, nearby, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on.
- Spatia, from the home page (free while it's in beta), moved to your Applications folder.
Set it up
- Allow access. Open Spatia. Its setup assistant asks for Accessibility (to tap and type) and Screen Recording (to see the phone). They're granted to Spatia itself, not to Windsurf.
- Connect your iPhone. Pair iPhone Mirroring once, with the phone locked and nearby. From then on Spatia connects for you.
- Add it to Windsurf. In the setup assistant, click Add next to Windsurf. Or add it yourself:mcp_config.json
{ "mcpServers": { "iphone": { "command": "/Applications/Spatia.app/Contents/MacOS/iphone-mcp" } } }
It goes in ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. The server is the
iphone-mcpexecutable inside Spatia.app; nothing else is installed. - Refresh Windsurf's MCP servers to load it.
- Just ask. Cascade, in every project.
Try asking
- “Open the app on my iPhone and reproduce the crash from the bug report.”
- “Check that the dark-mode fix shows up on the phone.”
- “List every setting on our app's Settings screen.”
- “Record the login flow as a video.”
How it works in Windsurf
Spatia is a local MCP server with 27 tools: Windsurf reads the iPhone's screen as words with tap points, so it taps on recognised text instead of guessing at pixels, and types exact text in any language. Every action can verify itself in the same call. The full list is in the developer section; how it compares with computer use, Appium and the open-source bridges is on the comparison page.
You stay in control: by default it asks before anything that sends, buys, posts or deletes, it never types a password, you can block apps by name, and the pause switch in the menu bar stops every tool at once. Picking up your iPhone stops it too.
Questions
Do I need to install anything on my iPhone to use it from Windsurf?
No. Spatia runs entirely on your Mac, through iPhone Mirroring. There's no app, profile or cable on the phone.
Where does Windsurf keep the Spatia config?
In ~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. Spatia's setup assistant writes it for you and backs up the file first; the snippet above is exactly what it adds.
What can Windsurf do on my iPhone?
Open apps, read the screen as text, tap, type, scroll, swipe and take screenshots: 27 tools in all. It asks before anything that sends, buys, posts or deletes, never types a password, and you can pause it from the menu bar.