Human interface guidelines for coding agents, grounded in Apple's design principles.
An Agent Skill that gives coding agents grounded, up-to-date guidance from Apple's Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for designing, building, and reviewing native UI/UX across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS — components, input methods, foundational design elements (color, typography, materials, motion, accessibility), interaction patterns, per-platform considerations, and platform technologies. It also includes workflows for generative tasks like designing a new component or composing a whole screen, not just answering one-off questions.
This repository also doubles as a Claude Code plugin marketplace (.claude-plugin/marketplace.json and
.claude-plugin/plugin.json at the repo root), so it can be installed and updated like any other plugin instead of
copying files by hand:
/plugin marketplace add https://github.com/NutshellEngineering/apple-design-skill
/plugin install apple-design-skill@apple-design-skill-marketplace
For local testing, <path-or-url-to-this-repo> can be a filesystem path (e.g. . from this directory); for sharing
with others, push this repo to a git host and use its URL or owner/repo shorthand instead.
The portable skill package lives in skills/apple-design-skill/ (the directory name
matches the skill's name: field, per the Agent Skills spec):
skills/apple-design-skill/SKILL.md— the skill definition: frontmatter metadata, when to use it, and the workflows an agent follows.skills/apple-design-skill/references/— the mirrored HIG content (Getting started, Foundations, Patterns, Components, Inputs, Technologies) plustopic-index.md, a flattened lookup of every article.
To use this skill with an Agent Skills-compatible client, point it at the skills/apple-design-skill/ directory (or
copy that directory into wherever your client discovers skills).
The original material in this repository — skills/apple-design-skill/SKILL.md,
skills/apple-design-skill/references/topic-index.md, and other project files we authored — is licensed under the
Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.md.
This license does not extend to the mirrored Apple documentation described below.
skills/apple-design-skill/references/ contains an unofficial mirror of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines, extracted via
sosumi.ai. All Human Interface Guidelines content, imagery, and trademarks belong to Apple
Inc. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple. It's provided for reference and
educational purposes only, on an "as is" basis with no warranty of accuracy or completeness.
The mirrored content may lag behind or diverge from Apple's official guidelines. Always consult the authoritative, current documentation at developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines before shipping a design decision. If you are Apple, or represent Apple, and would like this content removed or amended, please open an issue.