User Profile

TLDR; does a profile need to be deployed with an MDM server? Is there a way to add a configuration profile (.mobileconfig file) to Xcode device emulator without an MDM server (aka drag and drop the profile into the emulator)? Because right now I am getting an error saying that the "profile must be installed by an Mobile Device Management server". I am asking because I'm doing a proof of concept project and am trying to perform testing before I bring in the MDM server portion.