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Getting Started

Authoring your first test

Walk through building a minimal test — drag Open Application, Visual Assert, and Tap tiles from the Toolbox, hit play, and read the result.

This page walks you through your first test. It assumes the macOS app is installed, permissions are granted, and a simulator is connected (see Connecting a simulator or device if not).

1. Open or create a project

Mavster groups tests inside projects. From the welcome screen pick an existing project or create a new one. Each project has its own test list, suites, settings, and Cloud Sync state.

2. Add a new test

Inside a project, create a new test. You'll see the drag-drop editor: a Toolbox of interaction tiles on the left and an empty test column on the right.

Empty drag-drop editor: Toolbox column on the left with section headers (Visual Assert, Tap, Scroll, Drag, Built In, Keyboard Type, Wait, Wait Until, Run Test, User Defined), empty test column on the right.

3. Drag a Built-In: Open Application

From the Toolbox, drag a Built In tile into the test column. In the step's editor, pick Open Application from the command picker, then type your app name in the Enter application name field. This makes the test self-contained — every run starts from a known state instead of wherever the simulator happened to be.

4. Drag a Visual Assert

From the Toolbox, drag a Visual Assert tile after the Open Application step. In the step's editor, type a question describing what should be on screen — for example: Do you see the login screen with an 'Email' field and a 'Sign In' button?. Wrap exact UI labels in quotes so Mavster matches them literally instead of guessing. Visual Assert is a pass/fail gate; if the answer is no at run time, the test fails.

5. Drag a Tap

From the Toolbox, drag a Tap tile after the Visual Assert. In the step's editor, describe what to tap — for example: the 'Email' field. Tap uses AI to find the target on screen, and quoted text is matched exactly.

6. Run it

Hit play. Before any step executes, Mavster runs a few preflight checks and surfaces an alert if any of them fail — the run is refused outright (no partial execution, no credits spent). The checks:

  • A simulator or physical device must be connected. If not, you'll see "No device connected — connect a [platform] simulator or physical device before running a test." Connect from the Preview Connection panel and try again.
  • Your account must have credits or an active subscription. Otherwise "Can't run test — you have 0 credits and no active subscription." Top up from billing first.
  • The estimated cost of this run must fit your balance. If not, "Not enough credits — top up to avoid the run failing partway through."
  • Every $placeholder the test uses must have a value bound. If not, "Set parameter values first." Open the test header or relevant step and fill them in.

If all checks pass, Mavster brings the simulator to the foreground and walks the steps in order. Each step turns blue while running, then green for pass or red for fail. The test stops on the first failure unless the failed step has a run on previous failure child.

7. Read the result

A green test means every step passed. A red test means one failed — the failed step is shown in red and the test stops there.

To see what actually happened, open the chart icon in the test header and pick Run History, then pick the run from the list. That opens the playback view, where you can scrub through the video recording of the run alongside the step timeline. Every run is added to history automatically.

Playback view of a past test run: video recording on the left with playback controls; step timeline on the right showing the sequence of steps with their pass/fail status synced to the video.

What's next