NO XCODE BUILDING.

xcodebuild has always been able to build for a device from the terminal. The part that used to send people back to the GUI was getting the build onto the phone. Xcode 15 shipped xcrun devicectl, Apple's CLI for talking to a paired device.

MOOD.

START HERE.

iPhone has been opened in Xcode at least once, with automatic signing on.
Developer Mode is on: Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode
The phone is connected (USB) and unlocked

FIND. LOCATE YOUR DEVICE

bash

xcrun devicectl list devices

BUILD. CONNECT YOUR APP

bash

xcodebuild -project YourApp.xcodeproj -scheme YourScheme \
  -destination 'platform=iOS,name=Your iPhone Name' \
  -configuration Debug build

Use the device's name (as shown by devicectl) or its identifier — both work as a -destination. Automatic signing handles the rest as long as Xcode has provisioned that device before.

CONFIRM. Find the built .app

bash

xcodebuild -project YourApp.xcodeproj -scheme YourScheme \
  -destination 'platform=iOS,name=Your iPhone Name' \
  -showBuildSettings 2>/dev/null | grep -E "TARGET_BUILD_DIR|FULL_PRODUCT_NAME"

INSTALL.

bash

xcrun devicectl device install app --device <device-id> /path/to/YourApp.app

LAUNCH.

bash

xcrun devicectl device process launch --device <device-id> com.yourcompany.yourapp

ONE SCRIPT. EVERY STEP.

Five commands is a lot to remember. This script runs the whole thing: it finds your connected iPhone, always builds fresh (so you never accidentally reinstall something stale), installs it, and force-relaunches the app so a change you just made actually shows up instead of a suspended old process masking it. No flags needed — it detects your project, scheme, and device, and asks if more than one is found. It’s a maintained, versioned tool, not a one-off snippet, so grab it from its GitHub release instead of retyping it.

bash

curl -LO https://github.com/unparty-app/theunpartyunppp/releases/download/itd-v1.1.0/install-to-device.sh
chmod +x install-to-device.sh
./install-to-device.sh

DOWNLOAD install-to-device.sh

WHY?

Scalable use it for WORKFLOW, a git hook, or an agent that builds and installs on save
Performant No GUI focus-stealing while you work in the terminal or another window
Same commands work headless, over SSH, or from CI runners with a device attached

If three commands feels like two too many, ios-deploy (brew install ios-deploy) wraps build-install-launch-and-stream-logs into one call. devicectl is the Apple-supported path and doesn't need a third-party tool, so it's the one worth learning first.

“The GUI is a convenience, not a requirement.”
— unparty-app