Apple Developer Documentation CLI

Every Apple framework, indexed locally, with deprecation analysis and an MCP server no other Apple-docs tool has.

apple-docs-pp-cli mirrors developer.apple.com's DocC JSON into a local SQLite store you can grep across every framework, diff between releases, and project down to just the fields an agent needs. Ships with offline FTS, a cross-platform 'port-to' walker, a deprecation-cliff report, and an MCP server you can plug into Claude Desktop.

Created by @jcastillo725 (Joseph Alvin Castillo).

Authentication

No auth required. The DocC JSON endpoints under https://developer.apple.com/tutorials/data/ are public and served by Apple's CDN.

Quick Start

# Health check — verify network reachability without writing local state.
apple-docs-pp-cli doctor --dry-run

# Cache the master list of every Apple framework locally.
apple-docs-pp-cli sync --resources technologies --full

# Regex over a framework's index — finds every symbol whose title or path matches.
apple-docs-pp-cli grep onAppear --framework swiftui --json

# Token-lean projection: just the declaration fragments, not the full 50KB page.
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get 'swiftui/view/onappear(perform:)' --shape signature --agent

# Every SwiftUI API Apple deprecated in iOS 18.
apple-docs-pp-cli deprecation-cliff --os iOS --version 18 --framework swiftui --agent

Unique Features

These capabilities aren't available in any other tool for this API.

Agent-native plumbing

• doc get — Project a 50KB+ DocC JSON page down to just the fields an agent actually needs — abstract, signature, platforms, or all three — saving context tokens on every lookup.

  Use this when an agent is grounding code generation against an Apple symbol and only needs the abstract + signature + platform floor, not the full discussion + see-also tree.

  apple-docs-pp-cli doc get 'swiftui/view/onappear(perform:)' --shape min --agent
  

• bundle — Bundle a symbol's Markdown plus its depth-1 See-Also pages into a single token-budgeted blob, ready to paste into an agent prompt.

  Use when an agent needs a self-contained context blob about a symbol plus its closest relatives, without doing N round-trips and N JSON parses.

  apple-docs-pp-cli bundle 'swiftui/view/onappear(perform:)' --depth 1 --max-tokens 4000
  

Local state that compounds

• port-to — For a symbol unavailable on a target platform, walk the See-Also / Replacement-Of graph until landing on an alternative that IS available there and is not itself deprecated.

  Use when porting code between Apple platforms (iPad → visionOS, AppKit → SwiftUI, deprecated → current) and you need the migration target, not just a similar-named API.

  apple-docs-pp-cli port-to visionOS uikit/uitableview --agent
  

• snapshot diff — Diff two stored framework index snapshots and classify each delta as added, removed, deprecated, or likely-renamed (path-stem similarity).

  Use after every WWDC or dot-release to surface added/removed/deprecated symbols at the framework level.

  apple-docs-pp-cli snapshot diff swiftui --from 2025-06-09 --to 2026-05-28 --agent
  

• deprecation-cliff — List every Apple API deprecated in a given platform version, grouped by framework and symbol kind, with the replacement-hint column joined from references.

  Use when planning a migration sprint or writing a 'what's deprecated this year' guide; the only way to get the full list in one shot.

  apple-docs-pp-cli deprecation-cliff --os iOS --version 18 --framework swiftui --agent
  

• conformance — Walk a framework's relationshipsSections to enumerate concrete conformers of a protocol and the protocol's ancestors.

  Use when writing protocol-driven code (custom View, ObservableObject, Layout) and you need every concrete type that conforms.

  apple-docs-pp-cli conformance View --framework swiftui --agent
  

• grep — Regex over every synced framework's symbols with filters on kind, target platform, and deprecation status.

  Use when you remember the shape of a symbol name but not where it lives, or when auditing API patterns across the whole Apple SDK.

  apple-docs-pp-cli grep onAppear --framework swiftui --json
  

Service-specific patterns

• wwdc symbols — For a WWDC session ID, list every symbol whose doc page cites that session.

  Use after watching a WWDC session to enumerate every API it touched, or to find which session officially introduced an API you're working with.

  apple-docs-pp-cli wwdc symbols wwdc2024-10169 --agent
  

Recipes

Find a symbol's iOS introduction version

apple-docs-pp-cli doc get 'swiftui/view/onappear(perform:)' --shape platforms --agent --select platforms[].introducedAt

Returns just the platform-availability map — under 500 bytes vs 9KB for the full page.

List every concrete SwiftUI type that conforms to View

apple-docs-pp-cli conformance View --framework swiftui --json --select symbol,kind

Walks the local relationshipsSections graph; impossible from any single Apple endpoint.

What changed in SwiftUI at this year's WWDC?

apple-docs-pp-cli snapshot diff swiftui --from 2025-06-09 --to 2026-05-28 --classify --json

Classifies every delta as added / removed / deprecated / likely-renamed in one call.

Find the visionOS replacement for a UIKit symbol

apple-docs-pp-cli port-to visionOS uikit/uitableview --agent

Walks See-Also and Replacement-Of edges until landing on a symbol available on visionOS.

Bundle a symbol's docs as agent context

apple-docs-pp-cli bundle 'swiftui/view/onappear(perform:)' --depth 1 --max-tokens 4000

Markdown render of the symbol + every depth-1 See-Also page, truncated to a token budget.

Usage

Run apple-docs-pp-cli --help for the full command reference and flag list.

Commands

doc get

Fetch any documentation page (framework root, symbol, method, article) by path

• apple-docs-pp-cli doc get <path> - Fetch a documentation page by path and return it in the shape your tool actually wants (raw DocC JSON, projected via --shape abstract|signature|platforms|min, or rendered as Markdown via --markdown). The path is the lowercase-slashed identifier under /documentation/, e.g., swiftui, swiftui/view, or swiftui/view/onappear(perform:).

index

Fetch the full structured index of a framework (every symbol, in tree form)

• apple-docs-pp-cli index <framework> - Fetch a framework's full hierarchical index. Useful for offline FTS sync. Indexes are large (500KB–2MB).

technologies

List every Apple framework and technology (Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, etc.)

• apple-docs-pp-cli technologies - Fetch the master technologies index — every Apple framework, grouped by topic.

Output Formats

# Human-readable table (default in terminal, JSON when piped)
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get swiftui/view

# JSON for scripting and agents
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get swiftui/view --json

# Filter to specific fields
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get swiftui/view --json --select abstract,declaration,platforms

# Dry run — show the request without sending
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get swiftui/view --dry-run

# Agent mode — JSON + compact + no prompts in one flag
apple-docs-pp-cli doc get swiftui/view --agent

Agent Usage

This CLI is designed for AI agent consumption:

• Non-interactive - never prompts, every input is a flag
• Pipeable - --json output to stdout, errors to stderr
• Filterable - --select id,name returns only fields you need
• Previewable - --dry-run shows the request without sending
• Read-only by default - this CLI does not create, update, delete, publish, send, or mutate remote resources
• Offline-friendly - sync/search commands can use the local SQLite store when available
• Agent-safe by default - no colors or formatting unless --human-friendly is set

Exit codes: 0 success, 2 usage error, 3 not found, 5 API error, 7 rate limited, 10 config error.

Freshness

This CLI owns bounded freshness for registered store-backed read command paths. In --data-source auto mode, covered commands check the local SQLite store before serving results; stale or missing resources trigger a bounded refresh, and refresh failures fall back to the existing local data with a warning. --data-source local never refreshes, and --data-source live reads the API without mutating the local store.

Set APPLE_DOCS_NO_AUTO_REFRESH=1 to disable the pre-read freshness hook while preserving the selected data source.

Covered command paths:

• apple-docs-pp-cli technologies
• apple-docs-pp-cli technologies get
• apple-docs-pp-cli technologies list
• apple-docs-pp-cli technologies search

JSON outputs that use the generated provenance envelope include freshness metadata at meta.freshness. This metadata describes the freshness decision for the covered command path; it does not claim full historical backfill or API-specific enrichment.

Health Check

apple-docs-pp-cli doctor

Verifies configuration and connectivity to the API.

Configuration

Config file: ~/.config/apple-docs-pp-cli/config.toml

Static request headers can be configured under headers; per-command header overrides take precedence.

Troubleshooting

Not found errors (exit code 3)

• Check the resource ID is correct
• Run the list command to see available items

API-specific

• 404 from developer.apple.com for a framework slug — Slugs are case-sensitive lowercase with no separators. 'photokit' works; 'photoskit' returns 404. Try 'apple-docs-pp-cli technologies list' to list valid slugs.
• Cross-framework grep returns no results — Pass --framework to focus the scan, or raise --max-scan-frameworks; grep fetches one index per framework.
• Index sync is slow for SwiftUI/Foundation — Framework indices are 500KB–2MB; pass '--resources index --max-pages 1' on first sync, then add frameworks one at a time.

Sources & Inspiration

This CLI was built by studying these projects and resources:

• apple-docs-mcp — TypeScript (1300 stars)
• swift-docc — Swift (1100 stars)
• swift-docc-render — JavaScript (350 stars)
• sosumi-mcp — TypeScript (50 stars)
• appledeepdoc-mcp — Python (14 stars)
• apple-developer-toolkit — Go (8 stars)

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