Actell

Actell (执言) is an experimental AI agent that runs on an iPhone and operates the phone the way a person would: it captures the screen, reasons about what to do next, and performs taps, drags, and waits. Instead of depending on app-specific integrations, it calls Apple's CoreDevice services directly for screen capture and touch input.

Two connection routes are supported. The default on-device VPN loopback route works with your regular VPN app (verified with LocalDevVPN, Shadowrocket, and Clash) so no extra hardware is needed. Alternatively, an ESP32-S3 USB NCM relay provides a hardware-backed path for screen capture and touch.

The agent supports OpenAI Chat Completions-compatible model providers with an explicitly selectable native Responses path, Markdown/TXT skill-package imports, conversation history, image attachments, tool approval, and manual stopping. The README is unusually honest about prototype status: production readiness and reliable long-running background execution are not guaranteed, and validation records (for example, a VPN-loopback screenshot and real tap test on an iPhone 15 Pro in October 2026) are documented alongside the claims.

Tech: iOS app in Swift with the Xcode project checked in, a shared CoreDevice backend built in Rust, and ESP32-S3 firmware on ESP-IDF 5.5.5. Released under GPL-3.0. The author describes it as a vibe-coded project shared in its early prototype stage to explore ideas.