macos-dev

macos-dev

A Claude Code plugin for building native macOS apps with SwiftUI, AppKit, and Liquid Glass.

Quick Start • What It Gives You • Reference Topics • Pi • Local Install • License

Bundles curated Apple Developer documentation (snapshot 2026-05-30) directly into Claude Code. No web fetching, no hallucinated APIs — the skill auto-triggers on macOS dev tasks and points Claude at topic-organized reference files covering SwiftUI, AppKit, Liquid Glass, and AppKit↔SwiftUI interop.

---

Quick Start (Claude Code)

Install in two commands from inside Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add e-palmisano/macos-dev

/plugin install macos-dev

Then /reload-plugins. Ask any macOS dev question to confirm the skill triggers — for example:

"Adopt Liquid Glass in my SwiftUI Mac app"

---

Install on Pi

This repository is also a Pi package. Install it with the pi CLI:

From GitHub (recommended)

pi install git:github.com/e-palmisano/macos-dev

From npm

If you publish the package to npm with the pi-package keyword:

pi install npm:macos-dev-code

Enable the skill

After installation, verify the skill is enabled:

pi config

The macos-development skill auto-triggers on macOS / SwiftUI / AppKit / Liquid Glass keywords, or invoke it manually with:

/skill:macos-development

Tip: Pi loads skills from ~/.pi/agent/skills/ (global) or .pi/skills/ (project-local). Installing via pi install places the package under ~/.pi/agent/git/ and automatically makes the skill available to every session.

---

What It Gives You

Liquid Glass coverage — the 2025/2026 macOS design system postdates most model training cutoffs. This plugin carries the exact API names (glassEffect(_:in:), GlassEffectContainer, glassEffectID(_:in:), NSGlassEffectView) so Claude doesn't invent them from memory.

SwiftUI-first guidance — app/scene structure, views, state, controls, layout, animation, interaction, accessibility. Standard SwiftUI components pick up Liquid Glass automatically on the latest SDK.

AppKit when you need it — deep TextKit 2, NSView drawing, precise window/panel control, mature table/outline behavior, menus, and appearance.

Interop without the footguns — clear direction on which bridge to use: NSHostingController/NSHostingView for SwiftUI inside AppKit, NSViewRepresentable/NSViewControllerRepresentable for AppKit inside SwiftUI.

Auto-triggers — the skill activates automatically on any of these keywords:

build a macOS app · SwiftUI for macOS · AppKit · Liquid Glass · glassEffect · GlassEffectContainer · NavigationSplitView · NSToolbar · NSViewRepresentable · NSHostingView · MenuBarExtra · WindowGroup · NSSplitViewController · TextKit · Icon Composer · and more.

---

Reference Topics

The skills/macos-development/references/ directory contains topic-organized Apple docs. Claude loads only what's relevant to the current step and uses grep before full reads on large files.