Emasoft Apple Documentation plugin

Apple Developer Documentation for Claude Code: search iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS and visionOS documentation, frameworks, APIs, SwiftUI, UIKit and WWDC videos, and get Swift/Objective-C code examples, API references and technical guides directly in your Claude Code session. The plugin bundles an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, so installing the plugin is all it takes.

This plugin (emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin) is based on kimsungwhee/apple-docs-mcp by kimsungwhee (MIT license). It is an independent fork, repackaged as a Claude Code plugin; it is not published to npm.

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Features

• Smart Search: Intelligent search across Apple Developer Documentation for SwiftUI, UIKit, Foundation, CoreData, ARKit, and more

• Complete Documentation Access: Full access to the Apple JSON API for Swift, Objective-C, and framework documentation

• Apple Design and HIG Access: Read Human Interface Guidelines JSON, Apple Design pages, and Design Resources catalog entries

• Design Resource Previews: Return Apple-provided HIG images and resource thumbnails as MCP image content blocks

• Downloadable Design Resources: Download direct Apple-hosted templates, fonts, tools, and archives into a local MCP resource cache

• Framework Index: Browse hierarchical API structures for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS frameworks

• Technology Catalog: Explore Apple technologies including SwiftUI, UIKit, Metal, Core ML, Vision, and ARKit

• Documentation Updates: Track WWDC 2025/2026 announcements, iOS 27, macOS 27, and latest SDK releases

• Technology Overviews: Comprehensive guides for Swift, SwiftUI, UIKit, and all Apple development platforms

• Sample Code Library: Swift and Objective-C code examples for iOS, macOS, and cross-platform development

• WWDC Video Library: Search WWDC 2014-2026 sessions with transcripts, Swift/SwiftUI code examples, and resources (the data is downloaded once, on first use)

• Related APIs Discovery: Find SwiftUI views, UIKit controllers, and framework-specific API relationships

• Platform Compatibility: iOS 13+, macOS 10.15+, watchOS 6+, tvOS 13+, visionOS compatibility analysis

• High Performance: Optimized for Xcode, Swift Playgrounds, and AI-powered development environments

• Smart UserAgent Pool: Intelligent UserAgent rotation system with automatic failure recovery and performance monitoring

• Multi-Platform: Complete iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS documentation support

• Beta and Status Tracking: Beta and newly released APIs, deprecated UIKit methods, new SwiftUI features tracking

Related MCP server: Apple Docs MCP

Installation

Requirements

• Claude Code

• node (Node.js 22 or later) on your PATH. Claude Code runs the bundled server with node, and its native installer does not ship Node.js. Check with node --version.

• About 11 MB of disk space for the WWDC data, downloaded once the first time a WWDC tool is used (see WWDC Data).

From a Claude Code session

/plugin marketplace add Emasoft/emasoft-plugins
/plugin install emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin@emasoft-plugins

From a terminal

claude plugin marketplace add Emasoft/emasoft-plugins
claude plugin install emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin@emasoft-plugins --scope user

Restart Claude Code (or run /reload-plugins) to activate the plugin, then run /mcp to check that the apple-docs server of this plugin is connected.

Update and uninstall

claude plugin update emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin@emasoft-plugins
claude plugin uninstall emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin

Tool names in Claude Code

Claude Code namespaces the tools of a plugin MCP server, so the tool search_apple_docs appears as mcp__plugin_emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin_apple-docs__search_apple_docs. You never have to type these names: describe what you need and Claude picks the tool.

Troubleshooting

• The server fails to start, or /mcp shows it as failed? Claude Code launches the server with the command node. GUI apps do not always inherit the PATH of your shell: run which node in a terminal, and make sure that directory is on the PATH of the process that starts Claude Code. The plugin needs Node.js 22 or later.

• search_apple_docs returning nothing, or erroring? It depends on an undocumented Apple search backend (devintserv.msc.sbz.apple.com) that the search page of developer.apple.com uses internally. If Apple changes its response shape, search_apple_docs can break until this plugin catches up. get_apple_doc_content, search_framework_symbols and the WWDC tools do not depend on that endpoint and keep working.

• search_apple_docs feels slow? Apple streams the full result set, so a search typically takes 5 to 25 seconds (median about 10). Repeating the same query within 10 minutes is answered from a local cache.

Usage

Ask Claude in plain language; it chooses the right tool. Examples:

Smart Search

"Search for SwiftUI animations"
"Find withAnimation API documentation"
"Look up async/await patterns in Swift"
"Show me UITableView delegate methods"
"Search Core Data NSPersistentContainer examples"
"Find AVFoundation video playback APIs"

Documentation Access

"Get detailed information about the SwiftUI framework"
"Show me withAnimation API with related APIs"
"Get platform compatibility for SwiftData"
"Access UIViewController documentation with similar APIs"
"Show me NSManagedObjectContext documentation"
"Get URLSession async/await methods"

Apple Design and HIG

"Search Apple Design docs for layout"
"Read the HIG page about color"
"List Apple Design Resources for iOS templates"
"Download the Apple Design resource with this resourceId"
"Show Apple Design examples for the layout HIG page"

Framework Exploration

"Show me SwiftUI framework API index"
"List all UIKit classes and methods"
"Browse ARKit framework structure"
"Get WeatherKit API hierarchy"
"Explore Core ML model loading APIs"
"Show Vision framework image analysis APIs"

API Discovery

"Find APIs related to UIViewController"
"Show me similar APIs to withAnimation"
"Get all references from SwiftData documentation"
"Discover alternatives to Core Data NSManagedObject"

Technology and Platform Analysis

"List all Beta frameworks in the latest iOS"
"Show me Graphics & Games technologies"
"What machine learning frameworks are available?"
"Analyze platform compatibility for Vision framework"

Documentation Updates

"Show me the latest WWDC updates"
"What is new in SwiftUI?"
"Get technology updates for iOS"
"Show me release notes for Xcode"
"Find beta features in the latest updates"

Technology Overviews

"Show me technology overviews for app design and UI"
"Get comprehensive guides for games development"
"Explore AI and machine learning overviews"
"Show me iOS-specific technology guides"
"Get data management technology overviews"

Sample Code Library

"Show SwiftUI sample code projects"
"Find sample code for machine learning"
"Get UIKit example projects"
"Show featured WWDC sample code"
"Find Core Data sample implementations"
"Show only beta sample code projects"

WWDC Video Search

"Search WWDC videos about SwiftUI"
"Find WWDC sessions on machine learning"
"Show me WWDC 2026 videos"
"Search for async/await WWDC talks"
"Find WWDC videos about Swift concurrency"
"Show accessibility-focused WWDC sessions"

WWDC Video Details

"Get details for WWDC session 10176"
"Show me the transcript for WWDC23 session on SwiftData"
"Get code examples from WWDC video 10019"
"Show resources from Vision Pro WWDC session"
"Get transcript for the Meet async/await in Swift session"

WWDC Topics and Years

"List all WWDC topics"
"Show me Swift topic WWDC videos"
"Get WWDC videos about developer tools"
"List WWDC videos from 2023"
"Show all SwiftUI and UI frameworks sessions"
"Get machine learning WWDC content"

Advanced Usage

"Find related APIs for @State with platform analysis"
"Resolve all references from SwiftUI documentation"
"Get platform compatibility analysis for Vision framework"
"Find similar APIs to UIViewController with deep search"

Available Tools

Technical Architecture

emasoft-apple-documentation-plugin/
├── .claude-plugin/plugin.json        # Claude Code plugin manifest
├── .mcp.json                         # Registers the bundled MCP server (apple-docs)
├── servers/apple-docs/
│   ├── index.js                      # Committed esbuild bundle, the server users run
│   └── THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt      # Licenses of the bundled dependencies
├── src/                              # TypeScript sources of the server
│   ├── index.ts                      # MCP server entry point with all tools
│   ├── tools/                        # MCP tool implementations (docs, design, WWDC, ...)
│   └── utils/                        # Cache, HTTP client, UserAgent pool, error handling
├── scripts/                          # build-bundle.mjs and publish.py
├── tests/                            # Jest test suites
└── package.json                      # Development dependencies and scripts (private)

Performance Features

• Memory-Based Caching: Custom cache implementation with automatic cleanup and TTL support

• Smart UserAgent Pool: Intelligent rotation system with automatic failure recovery and performance monitoring

• Dynamic Headers: Realistic browser headers generation (Accept, Accept-Language, User-Agent)

• Smart Search: Official Apple search API with enhanced result formatting

• Enhanced Analysis: Optional related APIs, platform compatibility, and similarity analysis

• Error Resilience: Graceful degradation with comprehensive error handling

• Type Safety: Full TypeScript with Zod runtime validation

• Zero Runtime Dependencies: The server ships as one bundled file, with no node_modules to install

Caching Strategy

Downloaded Apple Design files are cached outside the plugin directory: in a temporary directory created per server process, or in the directory named by APPLE_DOCS_MCP_CACHE_DIR (see Configuration). They are exposed through MCP resources/list and resources/read.

WWDC Data

The WWDC video data (2014-2026) is not shipped with the plugin. The first call of a WWDC tool downloads one archive (about 11 MB: 1,400+ sessions with full transcripts, 19 topic categories) from the plugin's data release, checks its SHA-256 and extracts it into ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/wwdc-data/v2 (or into wwdc-data/v2 under APPLE_DOCS_MCP_CACHE_DIR, or under ~/.cache/apple-docs-mcp, when CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA is not set). Later calls, in any session, read it from disk. Starting the server and every other tool never download it. Videos, slides and sample projects are never downloaded: the WWDC tools only return their links.

To install the data offline or on a machine without access to GitHub, extract the archive yourself and point the plugin at it:

mkdir -p /path/to/wwdc-data
curl -L -o wwdc-data.tar.gz https://github.com/Emasoft/apple-docs-wwdc-data/releases/download/v2/wwdc-data.tar.gz
tar xzf wwdc-data.tar.gz -C /path/to/wwdc-data
export APPLE_DOCS_MCP_WWDC_DATA_DIR=/path/to/wwdc-data

The SHA-256 of the archive is 9e436884c29acb8ccef0b1077bc0713e1d380be513ba174cbf865fa7f17bc3bb. If the download fails, the WWDC tools report an error naming the URL, the target directory and APPLE_DOCS_MCP_WWDC_DATA_DIR.

Note: Update the plugin to get a newer WWDC data release.

Configuration

The server reads these optional environment variables when it starts. Set them in the environment of the process that starts Claude Code, because a Claude Code launched from the GUI does not see variables exported in a shell profile (observed on Claude Code 2.1.285; not documented by Anthropic). To set them, either start Claude Code from a terminal where they are exported, or, on macOS, run launchctl setenv NAME value and then restart Claude Code (launchctl values do not survive a reboot).

The server includes a pool of 12+ pre-configured UserAgent strings (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge on macOS, Windows and Linux) that it rotates with automatic failure recovery.

Jev semantic selection (optional, paid)

search_wwdc_content and search_apple_docs can use the Jev relevance-scoring service to narrow their results to the 1-5 that best match the query, each printed with a relevance score. It is off by default. To enable it, set APPLE_DOCS_MCP_JEV_RERANK=1, choose a provider with APPLE_DOCS_MCP_JEV_PROVIDER and set that provider's key (TYPESAFE_API_KEY, OPENROUTER_API_KEY, or JEV_GATEWAY_URL plus JEV_GATEWAY_API_KEY).

• Parameters: both tools accept select (true or false; the default follows APPLE_DOCS_MCP_JEV_RERANK) and maxResults (1-5, default 5, ignored when selection is off). select: true while Jev is not enabled is an error. If no result scores above the relevance threshold, the single best result is returned with a "No strong match" warning.

• limit in search_wwdc_content: with selection on, limit is the recall width: that many videos, ranked by match count, are scored by Jev (maximum 256). When limit is omitted, every candidate up to 256 is scored. With selection off, limit keeps its meaning (default 20, maximum 100). When the scan matched more videos than were scored, the header reads "Selected N of M scored (of T matching)".

• What is sent, and to whom: with selection on, the query and, for each candidate, its title, summary (Apple documentation results only), URL, topics and, for WWDC, an excerpt of its first match (transcript or code) are sent to the provider you chose: api.typesafe.ai for typesafe, openrouter.ai for openrouter, or the URL in JEV_GATEWAY_URL for gateway, together with your API key. Nothing is sent when selection is off.

• Cost: it is a paid service, billed by the provider to your key. Measured order of magnitude: about $0.0001 for about 17 Apple documentation results, about $0.001 for about 90 WWDC candidates, up to about $0.003 at the 256-candidate maximum. Selection typically adds under 2 seconds; at most about 15 seconds when the provider is slow or retrying.

• Fail fast: when selection is on, any failure (a missing key, an invalid provider, a network or provider error after retries) returns an error instead of unranked results. Pass select: false to get the unfiltered results.

The selection design is ported from jgrep (MIT).

Development

This section is for maintainers; plugin users never need it. Requirements: Node.js 22 or later and pnpm (the version is pinned by packageManager in package.json).

pnpm install --frozen-lockfile   # install the development dependencies
pnpm build                       # regenerate servers/apple-docs/index.js and THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt
pnpm typecheck                   # tsc --noEmit
pnpm lint                        # eslint src
pnpm test                        # Jest test suites
pnpm start                       # run the built stdio server (node servers/apple-docs/index.js)

• The bundle is committed. servers/apple-docs/index.js is what Claude Code runs, with no dependency installation step on the user machine. After changing anything under src/ or a bundled dependency, run pnpm build and commit the result: a freshness test (tests/bundle-freshness.test.ts) fails when the committed bundle differs from a fresh build.

• No npm or bun lockfile. Claude Code runs npm ci in the plugin root when package.json sits next to a package-lock.json, npm-shrinkwrap.json, bun.lock or bun.lockb, which would install every development dependency on every user machine. This repository uses pnpm, whose lockfile Claude Code ignores. A guard test (tests/plugin-lockfile-guard.test.ts) fails if one of those files appears.

• Dependency updates. A cheerio upgrade must re-verify the redirect to its load-parse entry in scripts/build-bundle.mjs (run pnpm build and the standalone bundle test).

• Release. Releases are cut with the CPV canonical pipeline: uv run python scripts/publish.py (lint, validation, tests, version bump in plugin.json, package.json and pyproject.toml, changelog, tag, push and GitHub release). Nothing is published to npm.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here is how to get started:

1. Fork the repository

2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature

3. Commit your changes using Conventional Commits (checked by commitlint in CI): git commit -m "feat: add amazing feature"

4. Push to the branch: git push origin feature/amazing-feature

5. Open a Pull Request

License

MIT License, see LICENSE for details. The original work is copyright kimsungwhee; additions are copyright Emasoft. The licenses of the dependencies bundled into the server are listed in servers/apple-docs/THIRD_PARTY_LICENSES.txt.

Disclaimer

This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc. It uses publicly available Apple Developer Documentation APIs for educational and development purposes.

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