Give Claude Code an Android phone: Android MCP server setup.

0:00 To give Claude Code an Android phone, add Phonebox's hosted Android MCP server with one command.

0:06 Claude Code then gets a real cloud Android phone it can see and control.

0:11 It reads the screen, taps, types, and installs apps.

0:14 No emulator, and nothing to install.

0:17 Here's the whole setup, and a real run, in about five minutes.

0:22 So, what is an Android MCP server?

0:24 MCP, the Model Context Protocol, is how Claude Code talks to tools.

0:28 Most Android MCP servers wrap ADB, which means you need an emulator, or a USB phone, on the same machine as your agent.

0:36 Phonebox is hosted instead.

0:38 The phone runs in the cloud, so it works from your laptop, a CI runner, or a cloud sandbox.

0:44 And the phone keeps its apps and sign-ins between sessions.

0:49 Connecting takes two steps.

0:51 First, get an API key.

0:52 The quickest way is to paste the setup prompt into Claude Code.

0:57 It signs you up from the terminal, and saves a key on your machine.

1:02 Then add the server: claude mcp add, with phonebox.dev/mcp and your key as a bearer header.

1:10 Now Claude Code has thirteen phone tools: create phone, observe, act, install app, live view, park phone, and more.

1:20 Now, a real run.

1:21 I ask Claude Code to install our sample app, Dockside Supply, and reorder last week's stock.

1:27 To install an APK, it calls create app upload, sends the file with one curl command, completes the upload, and calls install app.

1:36 About three seconds later, the app is on the phone.

1:40 Then it looks.

1:41 The observe tool returns the screen as a short, numbered list: every button and text field, with its label, plus a screenshot.

1:49 That's far less to read than raw pixels, and the agent can tap by label, instead of guessing coordinates.

1:57 Now it acts.

1:58 Tap Orders.

1:59 Tap Reorder.

2:00 Set oat milk to six crates.

2:02 Place order.

2:02 After each step, it reads the screen again to check the result.

2:07 And Phonebox never repeats a write on its own, so a slow response can't turn into a double order.

2:14 Order placed.

2:16 Some steps need a human, like a one-time sign-in code, or a payment.

2:20 The live view tool creates a link you open in a browser, to watch and control the phone, and then hand it back to the agent.

2:28 When it's done, Claude Code parks the phone.

2:31 A parked phone costs nothing, and keeps its apps, files, and signed-in accounts, so the next task starts where this one ended.

2:39 And if the agent forgets, the phone parks itself after five idle minutes.

2:45 The same server works with Cursor, Codex, or any MCP client that can send an authorization header.

2:52 And if you'd rather skip MCP, there's a CLI, a TypeScript SDK, and a REST API.

2:59 That's how to give Claude Code an Android phone: one MCP server, and real cloud phones.

3:05 The setup guide and the full transcript are at phonebox.dev.