Agent Skills: Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Use when designing, implementing, or reviewing interfaces for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, watchOS, CarPlay, or other Apple system experiences using Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. Routes to current platform, foundation, pattern, component, input, and technology guidance.

UncategorizedID: AyushRajSinghParihar/apple-human-interface-skills/apple-hig

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pnpm dlx add-skill https://github.com/AyushRajSinghParihar/apple-human-interface-skills/tree/HEAD/skills/apple-hig

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skills/apple-hig/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
apple-hig
Description
Use when designing, implementing, or reviewing interfaces for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, watchOS, CarPlay, or other Apple system experiences using Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. Routes to current platform, foundation, pattern, component, input, and technology guidance.

Apple Human Interface Guidelines

Use the relevant Apple guidance to make concrete design decisions. This package contains a router, 13 family routes, 158 operational topic skills, and supporting article-level references. It is independent of Apple. The sources are a dated English HIG snapshot; check the official source when a task depends on a newer release or a disputed detail.

Route the task

  1. Identify the target platform, device context, and user task from the request or project. Ask for the platform only when it materially affects the answer and cannot be inferred. Preserve the user's framework and product requirements.
  2. Select the relevant family below and read that family's SKILL.md. Follow its link to the exact topic procedure under .topics/ and read that SKILL.md. Apply its decision procedure, then consult its supporting article for facts and platform qualifications. Topic skills are explicitly read by installed file path; automatic nested discovery is not required. For platform support, product feasibility, or platform adaptation, first read each relevant platform's Getting started procedure, then the specific component or technology procedure. Check both the platform model and the surface's support limits.
  3. Before finalizing the route, search the complete topic index for the task's concepts as well as component or framework names. Its trigger descriptions connect everyday product requests to Apple's topic names; users need not name an Apple framework. Read the owning family and matching topic procedure before its supporting reference. Search relevant rows instead of loading the full corpus for a narrow question. For a screenshot-specific or animated example, also consult its original visual explanation when available.
  4. Apply shared guidance and the target platform's documented differences. A missing platform subsection means no additional rule is stated; it does not prove support, nonapplicability, or identical behavior across platforms.
  5. Compose families when the task crosses them: a component can also require accessibility, typography, localization, input, or system-experience guidance. Map the brief's material decisions to their owning topics. Read the owning procedure for each explicit concern, such as privacy or accessibility, as well as the affected components; a neighboring procedure's reminder is insufficient. Use platform and task routes when useful. In a review, map each supplied control to its candidate component procedure even when markup or behavior is missing. Use it to frame inspection questions; missing evidence neither proves a defect nor removes that control from scope.

All paths are relative to this installed package, not the shell's current directory. No Python, network, sibling skill installation, or authoring cache is required to read the guidance.

| Task | Read this topic skill | |---|---| | Platform conventions, design principles, games, device adaptation | Getting started | | Accessibility, typography, color, materials, layout, localization, privacy | Foundations | | Onboarding, loading, search, sharing, accounts, feedback, media, settings | Patterns | | Charts, images, text views, embedded web content | Content | | Lists, collections, split views, tab views, disclosure and grouping | Layout and organization | | Buttons, menus, toolbars, menu bar, ornaments and actions | Menus and actions | | Sidebars, tab bars, search fields, tokens and path controls | Navigation and search | | Alerts, sheets, popovers, panels, scrolling and windows | Presentation | | Text fields, pickers, sliders, toggles, selection controls | Selection and input | | Progress, activity, gauges and ratings | Status | | Widgets, Live Activities, notifications, Siri snippets and system surfaces | System experiences | | Touch, keyboard, pointer, focus, eyes, gestures, controllers and sensors | Inputs | | Apple Pay, purchases, Siri, VoiceOver, AI, CarPlay and integrations | Technologies |

Perform the requested work

Inspect the supplied brief, flow, code, specification or image before deciding what is wrong or choosing a framework. Use the user's requested mode:

  • Design: produce an implementable specification or interaction/state model from the topic's decision procedure, with concrete transitions and acceptance checks. Connect choices to the user's task and target platform.
  • Implement: prefer the project's native system components when they supply the needed behavior. HIG explains experience requirements; verify API names, availability, and code against the appropriate SDK documentation. Make the authorized changes in the existing stack; a prose explanation alone does not complete an implementation request.
  • Review: describe the observed problem, its effect, the relevant HIG rule, and a concrete correction. Separate source-backed findings from your own suggested improvements. Do not invent violations without inspecting evidence.
  • Adapt: preserve the product task, data and useful state while applying the destination platform's interaction model. Patch the supplied artifact or give an explicit before/after contract when a design specification is requested.

Topic procedures are framework agnostic. Their worked examples and pseudocode teach decisions, not a requirement to replace the project's technology. Load related procedures only for a decision that actually depends on them.

Complete the topic's observable checks and report passed, failed and not executed separately. Reading a file, citing Apple, or proposing a test does not establish runtime behavior. Static code or screenshots cannot prove assistive-technology order, native rendering, physical comfort, haptics, or SDK compilation.

Include official article/section links for material recommendations. Preserve qualifications such as “consider,” “prefer,” and “avoid”; do not turn design advice into invented universal requirements. Retain units and platform scope for numerical specifications. If source passages conflict, describe the conflict and the conservative application rather than silently changing the source.

Source boundaries

This is comprehensive local guidance, not a verbatim Apple manual or an SDK API reference. Original media explanations are supplementary to article references; the source page remains useful for visual demonstrations. Source snapshots and review status live in the repository's coverage report, outside ordinary skill loading. Do not infer that a source has been independently reviewed just because its local file exists.

Historical navigation-bars links now resolve to current Toolbars guidance; in-app-purchase resolves to Apple In-App Purchase. The old Touch Bar and Messages for Business HIG pages were unavailable at this snapshot. Do not fabricate their current rules. Translations, archived pages, and complete linked SDK/WWDC libraries are outside the source boundary.