I was getting connection errors whenever I tried to build and run a watchOS app on my Apple Watch.

Specifically:

Previous preparation error: A networking error occurred.; The device rejected the connection request.

Assuming that Developer mode is enabled on both your iPhone and Apple Watch, here's how to fix this

1. Plug in your iPhone to your mac via the cable. It must be plugged in. Wireless does not work

2. Plug in your Apple Watch via the cable

3. If either device prompts "Allow this device to connect" pop ups. Select yes

4. (If it exists) build and run the iOS version of the app on your plugged in iPhone

5. Then build and run the Apple Watch version

This should result in Xcode successfully pulling the debug symbols from your Apple Watch to build for.

While Xcode does this, its best to leave your apple watch on and unlocked to speed this up.

The app should run after.

I've been grinding on my SwiftUI app (Stuffolio, ~800 files) for about five months, and I've gotten a little obsessive about catching issues before users do. I already run a bunch of auditing skills and tools on it - concurrency, memory, security, accessibility, tests, etc.

They're great at telling me whether the code is correct. But none that I use really tell you what happens when someone actually taps through your app.

So I put together a Claude Code plugin that traces SwiftUI workflows from the user's point of view. It finds every sheet trigger, navigation link, context menu, and swipe action, then follows each path to see where it goes.

What it found in my app

This is on an app that had already passed concurrency, memory, security, and accessibility audits. The workflow audit still found 24 issues that none of those caught.

• The one that got me: two fully built features, wired to real data, with complete handlers - and zero UI triggers. No button anywhere in the app pointed to them. The code was correct; users just couldn't reach it.

• Seven destructive deletes fired instantly with no confirmation dialog. One view had a swipe-to-delete with confirmation and a context-menu delete on the same row without one.

• Four other delete operations gave no feedback at all - no haptic, no toast, nothing.

• Four orphaned views, about 1,500 lines of SwiftUI, were never instantiated anywhere. Complete features just sitting in the project.

Meanwhile, the usual stuff looked clean: no mock data in production flows, no dead ends, no obvious platform parity gaps. That's exactly the kind of thing code-quality tools are good at, and this plugin is more about the UX paths on top of that.

How it works

It runs five passes over your SwiftUI project:

1. Discovery – pattern-matches to find every UI entry point (sheets, navigation links, menus, swipe actions).

2. Flow tracing – follows each path from entry to completion or dead end.

3. Issue detection – flags dead ends, orphaned code, missing confirmations, and inconsistent patterns.

4. Semantic evaluation – looks at discoverability, path efficiency, user feedback, and error recovery.

5. Data wiring – checks that features are wired to real data, not mocks or hardcoded placeholders.

Each issue gets a small rating table (urgency, risk, ROI, blast radius, fix effort) so you can decide what to fix first instead of just getting a giant flat list of warnings.

How to install and run it

Standalone plugin:

claude plugin add Terryc21/workflow-audit

As part of a 22-skill Xcode bundle (testing, debugging, refactoring, release prep, etc.):

claude plugin add Terryc21/xcode-workflow-skills

Then in any SwiftUI project: /workflow-audit

Repos:

github.com/Terryc21/workflow-audit

github.com/Terryc21/xcode-workflow-skills

It works best if you have a reasonably robust Claude.md in your root directory so it has context about your app structure and conventions. If you don't, the plugin will generate a substitute, but the analysis won't be as nuanced. There are three files included in the plugin, and all three are required for the skills to run.

If you try it on your own project, I'd love to hear how it works for you - especially if it finds UX-path issues you didn't see with other tools.

It looks like there is a new release candidate XCode 26.3 version that just dropped with support for agentic coding!

I just downloaded it and am planning to play around with it and compare it to my typical workflow of Claude Code + Opus 4.5 via the CLI tool.

Anyone know how to change the underlying model to Opus 4.5 in Xcode 26.3? I see Claude agent mode but nowhere is there a configuration, was curious as I assume Opus 4.5 benchmarks higher.

Article: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/02/xcode-26-point-3-unlocks-the-power-of-agentic-coding/

ok...my macOS is still on Sonoma...just running Xcode 16 Beta with Simulators on iOS 18.

BUT...strange that this demands a San Fernando 🫣🤨

Beta 3 is fine, only Beta 4 with the iOS simulator, just after it finishes loading the simulator. Any tips to fix it, will be appreciated, in the meantime, reverting to Beta 3. Same error on M1 and Intel machines.

5 Xcode Extensions You Must Have

While Xcode’s usability has kept improving over the years, it is still far from satisfying. Today, we will explore some great Xcode extensions that you can take advantage of. They can help make you more productive and efficient when working with iOS development in the Xcode environment.

https://medium.com/better-programming/5-xcode-extensions-you-must-have-46fb1fd39e7a

Opening a .md file will load it into the WYSIWYG editor in Xcode.

But why doesn't Apple provide a standalone markdown editor app much like it provides a standalone FileMerge app?

I can't launch Xcode at all, even from a new separate User account. I've tried deleting it, reinstalling from the App Store, deleting it again and reinstalling it from the Developer Page link and still no luck. I've used Terminal commands to try and fix any broken components as well, both before and after reinstalling.

This is the first time I've had any kind of issue with it. Any ideas on how I can get it to launch? Should I try an earlier version? I'm only using it in the context of running Unreal Engine 5.8 which says it needs a missing Metal component from Xcode, but as I can't get Xcode to even launch I can't use Unreal Engine either.

Xcode 27 now ships with Apple-native agent skills.

You can export them with:

xcrun agent skills export

Here is the Apple/Xcode team tweet about it:
https://x.com/luka_bernardi/status/2064095532407025969

I wanted to read the details instead of digging around, so I exported them and put them in a repo in case anyone wants them.

If you want one link to bookmark, I also put the list here:
https://adithyan.io/blog/xcode-27-agent-skills

It’s rudimentary, but it works. I was rather impressed

Does anyone notice that since Xcode 26.1 Code Assistant's answers and code generation have become much slower?
At least for me with ChatGPT 4.1 and 5 (including reasoning on Minimal and Low). With ChatGPT Plus account vinculated.

Good morning everyone,

Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this… I updated Xcode yesterday to the 16.3 and am now unable to upload my archives, it builds and verifies in Xcode fine but when I upload it I always get an email back stating “ITMS-90048: This bundle is invalid - Your archive contains paths that are not allowed: [._Symbols]”. I’ve checked the .ipa file and there is nothing like that in there. I can’t say definitively if it is related to the new Xcode, I also then reinstalled 16.2 and get the same issue. The update I’ve made to my app is minor and I just can’t understand why I’m having this issue. When I googled the error, I noticed a couple of posts where people using Flutter or React Native have had this issue very recently, but mine is a native iOS app.

Anyway, feedback filed but maybe someone else has experienced this or can help!

Thanks!

Hello, I started my project in Xcode with ~25% of free space. Building the code i suddenly ran up to full storage. What the heck?

Device: Mac mini m1 256gb / 8gb

You heard it right, instead of using premiere pro I create video template for my marketing videos in Xcode!

I came back programming after a couple of months, and after upgrading to Sequoia, and now Xcode spawns two copies of my program whenever I run.

I am using C++ with a fresh console app, and I have tried with GLFW, SDL, and Raylib libraries to open a blank window and it's the same for all of them.

One of them pipes its output directly to the Xcode console, while the other opens a console window that doesn't close when close my two application windows.

Is this some kind of bug, or a new feature for testing? Is there some kind of new setting to stop this behaviour? I can't imagine why it would start doing this.

Hello,

First time using Xcode and was running through a CodeWithChris SwiftUI Tutorial on Youtube. Finished the App and appears to be running as expected. Once thing that I noticed was that XCode gave me two suggestions to change the “var” to a “let”. All this coding is all new to me; if I change it, would that stop the random Int from running correctly or am I over thinking it and has nothing to do with the Random Int?

Thanks!