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apple-docs

Coding & development

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Updated 10-15 23:33

About this skill

Apple & Swift Documentation Lookup

Your training data covers older Apple APIs well but is often stale or missing for recent releases (iOS/macOS 26, Liquid Glass, the newest SwiftUI). Fetch ground truth with the built-in tools below — no scripts, nothing to install.

Load the tools you need up front. This skill uses WebFetch, WebSearch, and Grep. Any that are deferred, load via ToolSearch first (e.g. select:WebFetch,WebSearch). If the Grep tool isn't available this session, use rg (or grep -r) via Bash with the same flags.

Route by what's being asked — this matters:

  • Explain / how does it work / show examples / read the docs or HIG → WebFetch the DocC JSON (recipe 2): it has Apple's official prose and code examples. Do NOT local-grep for this (interfaces have signatures, not examples), and do NOT grep the user's own project for Apple's docs.
  • Exact signature / availability / does a specific API exist / since-which-version → local SDK grep (recipe 1).
  • What's NEW in a framework (any release) → WebFetch the curated Updates changelog (recipe 2; grouped by year — June 2025 = iOS/macOS 26) — don't brute-force grep the SDK. For SDK-27 SwiftUI specifically, the swiftui-whats-new-27 skill's references are richer; for 26-era adoption guides, apple-api-updates.
  • Find a WWDC video → recipe 3. Why a Swift feature exists → recipe 4.

If the xcode-tools MCP server is connected (tools named mcp__xcode-tools__* exist), its DocumentationSearch adds one capability this skill lacks: semantic discovery — "what's the API for X" when you don't know the symbol name — over API reference, HIG, AND tutorials, indexed from the installed Xcode (so it matches the beta SDK you compile against). Division of labor, verified empirically:

  • Don't know the name / conceptual / HIG → DocumentationSearch (use its frameworks filter; ~30KB/query).
  • Know the symbol, want prose/examples → still WebFetch DocC (recipe 2): direct hit, no Xcode needed, no 20-result noise.
  • Existence / signature / availability → still SDK grep (recipe 1). Never use DocumentationSearch as an existence check: semantic search always returns ~20 confident-looking results — a fabricated API name scored 0.52–0.56 vs a real query's 0.57, and it has no "not found". Grep returns 0 hits for fakes; that falsification is the point.
  • Exact-symbol queries in DocumentationSearch rank related pages above the symbol's own page, then degrade to noise below ~0.6 score — treat the tail as filler.
  • No Xcode running / no MCP → this skill covers everything except semantic discovery (substitute: WebSearch scoped to developer.apple.com).

Recipes

1. Exact signature / availability / does a specific API exist → local SDK grep

Apple ships every public declaration in the SDK's Swift module interfaces — local, offline, an exact match for the Xcode you compile against. (This returns signatures, not prose or examples — for those use recipe 2.)

Search with the Grep tool if available, else rg via Bash (identical flags):

  • pattern: the symbol, e.g. func glassEffect
  • path: /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks (a stable symlink to the active SDK — grep it directly, no xcrun needed)
  • Multiple Xcodes installed? Grep the SDK of the Xcode the project BUILDS with — for beta-SDK work substitute Xcode-beta.app in the path, or availability answers will be a major version stale (e.g. an iOS 27 API shows zero hits in 26.x's SDK, which reads as "doesn't exist").
  • glob: *.swiftinterface
  • -B 3 (Grep tool: -B: 3) — the @available(...) lines sit directly above the declaration, so one pass gets signature and availability; don't re-search for @available.

Symbols live in their defining module (glassEffect → SwiftUICore, which SwiftUI re-exports), so grep the whole Frameworks dir. Interfaces ship per-arch, so each decl appears ~twice — ignore dupes. Never Read a whole .swiftinterface file (they're 1–2 MB), and never hand-write multiline regexes — always plain grep.

Is a specific API new in 26 / since when? Grep its name with -B 3 (above) — the @available line answers it. For a full list of what's new in a framework, don't grep the SDK — use the curated changelog (recipe 2, the Updates/<Framework>.json page).

2. Explain / examples / full API reference / HIG → WebFetch (Apple DocC JSON)

This is the route for any "explain X" / "how does X work" / "show me examples" / "what do the HIG say" request — the DocC JSON carries Apple's official prose and code examples (the local SDK interfaces have neither). Apple renders every doc page from DocC JSON: a stable, versioned endpoint. WebFetch the JSON URL and ask for Markdown — it resolves cross-references, code samples, and tables for you. Fetch each URL once (ask for everything you need in the prompt).

  • API reference: https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/data/documentation/<path>.json e.g. …/documentation/swiftui/view/scrolltargetbehavior(_:).json (lowercase the path)
  • Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/data/design/human-interface-guidelines/<topic>.json — e.g. …/materials.json (note the design/… slug — no documentation/ segment for HIG). Topic slugs aren't always 1:1: Liquid Glass guidance lives on materials.json, not liquid-glass.json. If a guessed slug 404s, WebSearch developer.apple.com/design to find the right page instead of guessing again.
  • Framework index / "what APIs are in X": …/tutorials/data/documentation/<framework>.json — its topicSections list the members.
  • What's NEW in a framework (best for "what changed in iOS/macOS 26"): https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/data/documentation/Updates/<Framework>.json — e.g. Updates/SwiftUI.json. Apple's curated "what's new," grouped by release; the June-2025 section = iOS/macOS 26. One WebFetch beats grepping thousands of @available lines.
  • Do NOT WebFetch developer.apple.com/documentation/… (the human page) — it's a JS shell with no content. Always use the tutorials/data/…json URL.

3. WWDC sessions — find by topic, then read → WebSearch + WebFetch

  • Find sessions: WebSearch "WWDC <topic>" (optionally allowed_domains: ["developer.apple.com"]). Apple's session pages are well-indexed, so this reliably surfaces the relevant sessions across all years (2015→latest). E.g. "WWDC SwiftUI scroll performance" → Demystify SwiftUI performance (wwdc2023/10160) and Optimize SwiftUI performance with Instruments (wwdc2025/306); "WWDC Instruments time profiler" → the 2016 Time Profiler / System Trace in Depth sessions and the 2025 CPU/Processor-Trace ones. Results include the …/videos/play/wwdc<year>/<id>/ URL.
  • Read a session: WebFetch https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc<year>/<id>/ → the full transcript (no timestamps).
  • Apple also has topic-browse pages such as …/videos/developer-tools/performance that you can WebFetch to list a category's videos.

4. Swift Evolution — the "why" behind a language feature → WebFetch

  • A specific proposal: WebFetch https://raw.githubusercontent.com/swiftlang/swift-evolution/main/proposals/<NNNN>-<slug>.md
  • Search by keyword: WebFetch https://download.swift.org/swift-evolution/v1/evolution.json (has .proposals[] with id/title/summary/status) and filter for your term.

5. iOS 26 design/adoption guides (Liquid Glass, AlarmKit, FoundationModels…) → apple-api-updates skill

These Apple adoption guides are vendored in this plugin's apple-api-updates skill (references indexed by topic) — use that skill directly. Fallback if it's unavailable: grep pattern = your topic, path = /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/PlugIns/IDEIntelligenceChat.framework/Versions/A/Resources/AdditionalDocumentation (substitute Xcode-beta.app for the beta), then Read the matching *.md.

Notes

  • Prefer Grep (local SDK) for "exists / signature / since-when" — instant, offline, exact. Prefer WebFetch (DocC JSON) for understanding — prose, examples, HIG.
  • Can't find it / not sure where it lives? WebSearch scoped to developer.apple.com (videos, docs, sample code, and forums are all well-indexed), then WebFetch the best result. This is the general fallback for anything the recipes above don't cover.
  • Advanced (only if you need exact structured fields rather than rendered prose): the DocC JSON has .abstract, .primaryContentSections, .topicSections, and a .references map (resolve inline {"type":"reference","identifier":…} fragments against it). You can curl <url> | jq those directly — but WebFetch already does this rendering, so reach for jq only when you need something specific.
  • These supplement, not replace, your knowledge — use them on anything recent or when you're unsure.