Skip to content

feat: add /design-review-ios with XcodeBuildMCP integration#262

Open
Skyfox-io wants to merge 1 commit intogarrytan:mainfrom
Skyfox-io:feat/design-review-ios
Open

feat: add /design-review-ios with XcodeBuildMCP integration#262
Skyfox-io wants to merge 1 commit intogarrytan:mainfrom
Skyfox-io:feat/design-review-ios

Conversation

@Skyfox-io
Copy link

@Skyfox-io Skyfox-io commented Mar 21, 2026

Summary

  • Adds XcodeBuildMCP integration to gstack, enabling iOS design QA directly from Claude Code
  • New /design-review-ios skill builds, screenshots, and interacts with iOS apps on the simulator — MCP server preferred, CLI fallback
  • Iteratively finds and fixes visual issues with atomic commits and before/after screenshot evidence

What this enables

gstack can now audit iOS apps the same way /design-review audits web apps, using the iOS Simulator via XcodeBuildMCP. The skill covers 10 design categories (~107 checklist items):

  • Typography, spacing, and visual hierarchy
  • Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) compliance
  • Accessibility (touch targets, labels, VoiceOver readiness)
  • Light/dark mode parity
  • AI slop detection (generic gradients, placeholder copy, stock patterns)
  • Multi-device matrix testing (iPhone SE → iPad)

Integration architecture

The skill auto-detects the best integration mode at startup:

  1. MCP server (preferred): If XcodeBuildMCP is configured as an MCP server, the skill calls its tools directly (build_run_sim, screenshot, tap, snapshot_ui, etc.) — no Bash, no PATH issues, no DEVELOPER_DIR workaround
  2. CLI fallback: If no MCP tools are available, falls back to the xcodebuildmcp CLI via Bash

This means zero-config for users who already have XcodeBuildMCP set up as an MCP server (claude mcp add xcodebuildmcp).

How it works

  1. Detects the Xcode project, scheme, and simulator via discover_projs / list_schemes / list_sims
  2. Builds and launches the app via build_run_sim
  3. Screenshots and inspects the accessibility tree via screenshot and snapshot_ui
  4. Navigates the app using UI automation tools (tap, gesture, swipe)
  5. Audits every reachable screen against HIG + the project's design system
  6. Fixes issues in source code, commits atomically, rebuilds, and re-screenshots to verify

Requirements

  • XcodeBuildMCP — either as an MCP server (recommended: claude mcp add xcodebuildmcp -- npx -y xcodebuildmcp@latest mcp) or CLI (brew install getsentry/xcodebuildmcp/xcodebuildmcp)
  • Xcode + iOS Simulator
  • macOS only (iOS Simulator requirement)

Test plan

  • Tested on a live iOS project(s). Full audit cycle with screenshot capture, issue detection, and fix verification in both MCP and CLI modes
  • Reviewer can invoke /design-review-ios on any iOS project with XcodeBuildMCP configured (MCP server or CLI)

@Skyfox-io
Copy link
Author

Updated: MCP-first architecture

Reworked this from CLI-only to MCP-first with CLI fallback. XcodeBuildMCP is fundamentally an MCP server, and the CLI is the secondary interface. Making MCP the primary integration means:

  • Zero-config for users who already have XcodeBuildMCP as an MCP server
  • No DEVELOPER_DIR workaround needed
  • No PATH/binary detection issues
  • Structured tool calls instead of parsing bash stdout

CLI remains fully supported as a fallback for users without the MCP server configured.

Force-pushed to squash into a clean commit since the architectural premise changed.

…ration

iOS design QA via simulator: finds visual inconsistency, spacing issues,
HIG violations, accessibility gaps, and AI slop patterns, then fixes them.

Auto-detects integration mode at startup:
- MCP server (preferred): calls XcodeBuildMCP tools directly (build_run_sim,
  screenshot, tap, snapshot_ui, etc.) with no Bash, no PATH issues, no
  DEVELOPER_DIR workaround
- CLI fallback: uses xcodebuildmcp CLI via Bash when MCP tools unavailable

Covers 10 design categories (~107 checklist items) across typography,
HIG compliance, accessibility, light/dark parity, AI slop detection,
and multi-device matrix testing.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
@Skyfox-io Skyfox-io force-pushed the feat/design-review-ios branch from 58fc965 to 22cc23b Compare March 21, 2026 20:52
@Skyfox-io Skyfox-io changed the title feat: add /design-review-ios XcodeBuildMCP CLI integration for iOS design QA feat: add /design-review-ios with XcodeBuildMCP integration Mar 21, 2026
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

1 participant