Phonebox (Android for AI agents)

Hosted Android MCP server: give Claude Code, Codex or Cursor a cloud Android phone to read the screen, tap, type, install APKs and park. No ADB or emulator.

GitHubTry this MCPSponsored

Hosted MCP Server

npx add-mcp 'https://phonebox.dev/mcp'

Installs into Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and more

Documentation

Phonebox Android MCP server

A hosted Android MCP server for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and any MCP client, from Phonebox, the agent-first cloud phone. Your agent gets a real Android phone in the cloud. It can read the screen, tap, type, install your APK, hand off to a human, and park the phone when it's done. You don't need ADB, Android Studio or an emulator.

claude mcp add --transport http phonebox https://phonebox.dev/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $PHONEBOX_API_KEY"

Endpoint: https://phonebox.dev/mcp (Streamable HTTP, bearer API key)
Price: $0.06 per phone-minute, billed per second, 1-minute minimum. Parked phones are free and keep their apps and sign-ins.
Start free: $2 of credit, no card → phonebox.dev

This repo holds the configs and examples. The server itself is hosted by Phonebox, so there's nothing to run.

Why agent-first

Most cloud phones were built for social-media dashboards or QA test suites and added an API later. Phonebox was built for the agent: your agent signs you up from the terminal, reads the screen as text, gets errors with a next step, and never has a write retried behind its back. Idle phones park themselves for free.

Why hosted instead of an ADB MCP server?

	Local ADB MCP server	Phonebox hosted MCP
Where the phone runs	An emulator or USB phone on your machine	Phonebox's cloud
Setup	Android SDK, ADB, a system image	One URL and an API key
Works from CI, sandboxes and remote dev boxes	Only with nested virtualization or a device	Yes
State between sessions	Whatever your emulator keeps	Apps, files and sign-ins kept while parked
Human handoff	Someone at the machine	A live view link in any browser

Get an API key

The fastest way is to paste this into your coding agent. It signs you up from the terminal, and you never paste a key into the chat:

Read https://phonebox.dev/setup.md and set me up with Phonebox from here: get me signed in and ready, then find out what I want to use phones for and help me with that.

Or create a key in the console and export PHONEBOX_API_KEY=pbx_….

Connect your client

Claude Code — run the command at the top, or commit this repo's .mcp.json. It reads the key from each person's environment:

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

Cursor: add examples/cursor-mcp.json to ~/.cursor/mcp.json or .cursor/mcp.json.

Codex: add examples/codex-config.toml to ~/.codex/config.toml.

Any other client: point it at https://phonebox.dev/mcp with an Authorization: Bearer pbx_… header. The server is stateless Streamable HTTP and doesn't use OAuth.

Tools

Tool	What it does
`create_phone`	Creates a cloud Android phone and waits until it's ready
`observe`	Reads the screen as a numbered text list, plus a 720px screenshot
`act`	Runs up to 20 actions in order: tap, type, swipe, scroll, open an app, wait for an element
`install_app`	Installs from the app library or from your own uploaded APK
`create_app_upload` / `complete_app_upload`	Uploads your APK with one `curl` command
`live_view_url`	A link for a person to watch and control the phone
`start_phone` / `park_phone`	Resumes a parked phone, or parks it to stop billing
`list_phones` / `get_phone` / `list_apps` / `reboot_phone`	Find phones, wait for them, list apps, restart a stuck phone

What the agent reads from observe:

app com.android.launcher3
screen 1080x2400
[1] EditText "Search apps" #search clickable editable (540,250)
[2] TextView "Chrome" #icon clickable (200,1900)
[3] TextView "Settings" #icon clickable (500,1900)

Examples

Test the APK you just built: build, install, explore, and report bugs with the exact screen text.
TypeScript SDK agent: create a phone, read the screen, tap, park.

What it isn't

Android only (no iOS), and there are no phone numbers, SMS or calls. Phonebox gives your agent the device, not telephony.