What I am trying to achieve is editing code in vim then running make and that would invoke the same functionality as Cmd+R in Xcode: build and launch a simulator with latest changes.
What actual commands are invoked and what parameters are used in this process? Is there a way to view this from Xcode?
Try running
xcodebuildfrom project’s directory. Running with--helpparameter will reveal all the stuff that you need – which project to build, which target to run, which sdk to use (iphoneos or iphonesimulator). Usually the call looks like this: