Today we're releasing Apple HIG Skills — 14 agent skills that give your AI coding assistant accurate Apple Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) knowledge on demand. Free, open source, and one command to install.

AI coding assistants hallucinate design patterns. Ask one how to build an iPad sidebar and you'll get something that looks reasonable but violates half a dozen HIG conventions — wrong split ratios, missing compact-width adaptation, no sidebar toggle behavior. The problem isn't the model. It's missing context. Apple's design guidelines across iOS, macOS, watchOS, and visionOS run deep, and no model has them reliably memorized.

Apple HIG Skills fixes this. Your agent gets 156 reference documents covering the complete HIG — platform-specific guidance for SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit that loads automatically when your agent needs it.

npx skills add raintree-technology/apple-hig-skills

Why skills instead of a system prompt?

The full Apple HIG would consume over 50,000 tokens as a system prompt — that's most of your context window gone before you write a line of code. Agent skills use progressive disclosure instead. Your agent loads only the specific guidance it needs, when it needs it. A typical question costs around 4,000 tokens (92% less), so the rest of your context window stays free for your actual code.

14 skills covering the complete Apple HIG

156 reference documents organized into six areas:

Foundations — Color, typography, SF Symbols, dark mode, accessibility, layout, motion, privacy
Platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS conventions
Components — Six skills covering layout, controls, menus, dialogs, content display, search, status indicators, and system experiences (widgets, live activities, notifications, app clips)
Patterns — Onboarding, navigation, search, feedback, drag and drop, modality, settings
Inputs — Gestures, Apple Pencil, keyboards, game controllers, pointers, Digital Crown, eye tracking
Technologies — Siri, Apple Pay, HealthKit, ARKit, ML, Sign in with Apple, SharePlay

There's also a project context skill that creates a shared config at .claude/apple-design-context.md — your target platforms, frameworks, and design decisions. Every other skill reads this file, so guidance is tailored to your actual project rather than generic cross-platform advice.

Install in one command

npx skills add raintree-technology/apple-hig-skills

The skills register with your agent and activate automatically when relevant. No configuration, no API keys.

Before and after: dark mode colors

You ask: "What colors should I use for dark mode in my iOS app?"

Without HIG Skills, you get generic advice — maybe some hard-coded hex values, a tip to "use darker backgrounds," and code that ignores the system color API entirely. It compiles, but it won't adapt to Increased Contrast, won't match system conventions, and will look wrong next to native apps.

With HIG Skills, your agent knows the actual guidelines. You get system semantic colors (label, secondaryLabel, systemBackground), the elevated surface pattern for dark mode layering, WCAG AA contrast requirements, and working SwiftUI code that adapts to accessibility settings automatically.

The difference shows up across every part of the HIG. Ask about tab bar design and you get the real differences between iOS, macOS, and iPadOS conventions — not a generic tab component. Building a visionOS app? You get guidance on ergonomic zones, Z-axis depth, and spatial anchoring that's specific to the platform.

Works with 9 AI coding assistants

Built on the open Agent Skills standard. Compatible with Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Windsurf, Cline, Aider, Roo Code, Continue, and Augment Code.

Open source

MIT licensed, like all of our open source projects. The skill structure and tooling are fully open. HIG content in the reference files is Apple's intellectual property, included here for AI agent guidance. The skills update when Apple revises the HIG — contributions for new content, better skill descriptions, or expanded coverage are welcome on GitHub.

Get started

One command. No accounts, no API keys, no infrastructure.

npx skills add raintree-technology/apple-hig-skills

The skills activate when your AI coding assistant encounters Apple platform design questions — and stay out of the way when it doesn't. Stop debugging hallucinated HIG advice and start building with the real guidelines.