Environment Variables

Reference for all environment variables recognized by Tapsmith.

Most users will never need to set any of these. They are primarily useful for debugging, CI customization, and advanced setups where the defaults do not apply.

Daemon and Binary

Variable	Description
TAPSMITH_DAEMON_BIN	Override the path to the tapsmith-core daemon binary. Checked before auto-resolution from npm packages, monorepo builds, and PATH.
TAPSMITH_DAEMON_LOG	Path to a file for daemon stdout/stderr. When set, the CLI redirects the spawned daemon’s output to this file. Useful for debugging daemon-side behavior (MITM proxy, agent startup, etc.).
TAPSMITH_REUSE_DAEMON	When set (any truthy value), the CLI connects to an existing daemon without killing it. Used internally by the MCP server’s tapsmith_run_tests tool to avoid destroying a daemon owned by UI mode.

Debugging

Variable	Description
TAPSMITH_DEBUG	Enable debug logging in the TypeScript SDK (assertion polling, element resolution, etc.). Set to 1 or true.
RUST_LOG	Control Rust daemon log verbosity. Examples: RUST_LOG=info, RUST_LOG=tapsmith_core=debug. Useful for diagnosing MITM proxy issues, agent startup failures, and device communication problems.

iOS Network Capture

Variable	Description
TAPSMITH_REDIRECTOR_APP	Override the path to the mitmproxy Redirector app binary. Default search order: (1) this env var, (2) /Applications/Mitmproxy Redirector.app/Contents/MacOS/Mitmproxy Redirector, (3) ~/.tapsmith/redirector/ (auto-extracted from brew cask).

CI and Reporters

Variable	Description
CI	When set to "true", Tapsmith auto-selects the dot reporter instead of list. Most CI providers set this automatically.
GITHUB_ACTIONS	When set (GitHub Actions sets it automatically), Tapsmith auto-adds the github reporter for inline annotations on test failures.
GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY	Path to the GitHub Actions step summary file. The GitHub reporter writes a Markdown summary table when this is set.

Android

Variable	Description
ANDROID_HOME	Path to the Android SDK. Used to find adb, emulator, and avdmanager binaries. Falls back to ANDROID_SDK_ROOT.
ANDROID_SDK_ROOT	Alternate path to the Android SDK (deprecated by Google in favor of ANDROID_HOME, but still supported as a fallback).

Internal (Set by Tapsmith)

These are set by Tapsmith internally and generally should not be modified by users.

Variable	Description
TAPSMITH_WORKER_ID	Set by the CLI in parallel and watch mode. Identifies the current worker process.
TAPSMITH_DAEMON_ADDRESS	Comma-separated daemon addresses. Used internally by MCP server mode.
TAPSMITH_UI_DEV_URL	Development server URL for UI mode’s frontend. Internal use only.

Examples

Debugging a daemon issue

RUST_LOG=tapsmith_core=debug TAPSMITH_DAEMON_LOG=daemon.log npx tapsmith test
# Then inspect daemon.log for MITM proxy, agent startup, and device communication logs

Running in CI with a custom daemon binary

TAPSMITH_DAEMON_BIN=/usr/local/bin/tapsmith-core npx tapsmith test

Verbose SDK debug output

TAPSMITH_DEBUG=1 npx tapsmith test tests/flaky.test.ts