There will be times where you want to do these on the command line.

List the available SDKs

xcodebuild -showsdks

For example, I have iphonesimulator8.2 in my list of SDKs. This will be used in the next step.

Xcode Build

Build the project:

xcodebuild -project '/path/to/Awesome.xcproj' -arch i386  -sdk iphonesimulator8.2

If you are using workspace, then you need to provide the scheme too:

xcodebuild -workspace '/path/to/Awesome.xcworkspace' -scheme 'Awesome-Production' -arch i386  -sdk iphonesimulator8.2

The build will be created at ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData.

So, if the build is successful, the app will be at ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/Awesome-dvxamtpiqakwogarovbwiagepzxj/Build/Products/Release-iphonesimulator/Awesome.app. This path is needed in the next step.

Run on Simulator

Use ios-sim to help run on simulator.

Install it with brew install ios-sim.

Then run:

ios-sim launch <path-to-app>

That’s it!