The annoying thing is the official Swift extension can sometimes flag errors in perfectly fine code with zero problem in Xcode. So I’m forced to live with persistent “errors” when editing in VS Code/Cursor.
I’m building my first iOS app ever so I know it has much more to do with me not understanding Xcode but getting builds to succeed after making changes with Claude code has been a nightmare. If you or anyone have any tips, guides, prayers, incantations for how to get changes in one to not clobber the other and leave me in xproj symlink hell I would be so grateful.
> any tips, guides, prayers, incantations for how to get changes in one to not clobber the other
One caveman way:
1. Start your project using Xcode, use it to commit to GitHub, GitLab, whereever. In terminal, change into the dir that has the .git in it and launch claude.
2. Teach Claude Code your own system's path and preferred simulator for build testing. From then on it will build-test every change, so teach it to only commit after build passes. (By teach, I mean, just tell it, then from time to time, tell it to propose updates to claude.md in your project.)
3. Make sure before a PR or push that the project still builds in Xcode, if it doesn't, you can eyeball the changes in Xcode's staged changes viewer and undo them. If you change files via IDE, when you're back in Claude just say: I changed [specific/file, or "a lot of files"].
No xproj or symlinks get harmed in the making of your .swifts.
What was your problem with it? I see it running in a terminal more convenient (can point it to read local files outside of a project folder, for example)
if i could just get claude to properly remember it can directly edit the xcode project file, that'd be great.
for whatever reason it ignores my directive that it can from the CLAUDE file at least half the time. one time it even decided it needed to generate a fancy python script to do it. bizarre.
Agreed. Claude Code is an amazing experience with Jetbrains IDEs, but for some reason Xcode just hates having claude directly edit the files.
How do you use it with Jetbrains? Junie? Or just as a separate CLI session?
They might be referring to the plugin https://plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/27310-claude-code-beta-
I use VS Code with Claude Code, then I just use Xcode to build and launch
The annoying thing is the official Swift extension can sometimes flag errors in perfectly fine code with zero problem in Xcode. So I’m forced to live with persistent “errors” when editing in VS Code/Cursor.
I’m building my first iOS app ever so I know it has much more to do with me not understanding Xcode but getting builds to succeed after making changes with Claude code has been a nightmare. If you or anyone have any tips, guides, prayers, incantations for how to get changes in one to not clobber the other and leave me in xproj symlink hell I would be so grateful.
> any tips, guides, prayers, incantations for how to get changes in one to not clobber the other
One caveman way:
1. Start your project using Xcode, use it to commit to GitHub, GitLab, whereever. In terminal, change into the dir that has the .git in it and launch claude.
2. Teach Claude Code your own system's path and preferred simulator for build testing. From then on it will build-test every change, so teach it to only commit after build passes. (By teach, I mean, just tell it, then from time to time, tell it to propose updates to claude.md in your project.)
3. Make sure before a PR or push that the project still builds in Xcode, if it doesn't, you can eyeball the changes in Xcode's staged changes viewer and undo them. If you change files via IDE, when you're back in Claude just say: I changed [specific/file, or "a lot of files"].
No xproj or symlinks get harmed in the making of your .swifts.
Same, only it's Zed for me and Claude Code in a terminal
What was your problem with it? I see it running in a terminal more convenient (can point it to read local files outside of a project folder, for example)
if i could just get claude to properly remember it can directly edit the xcode project file, that'd be great.
for whatever reason it ignores my directive that it can from the CLAUDE file at least half the time. one time it even decided it needed to generate a fancy python script to do it. bizarre.
How so? I don't use xcode, but I much prefer having an agent in its own "app" so to speak.
Likely so it can auto suggest, directly edit code, integrate properly etc
You can use VSCode and XCode will automatically update when the files change.