Agent-Skills.md

Agent Skills: Swift Memory Management

Manage ARC, Weak/Unowned References, and Capture Lists in Swift. Use when managing Swift ARC, avoiding retain cycles, or configuring capture lists in closures. (triggers: **/*.swift, weak, unowned, capture, deinit, retain)

UncategorizedID: hoangnguyen0403/agent-skills-standard/swift-memory-management

Repository

hoangnguyen0403/agent-skills-standard
HoangNguyen0403License: Apache-2.0
362103

Install this agent skill to your local

pnpm dlx add-skill https://github.com/HoangNguyen0403/agent-skills-standard/tree/HEAD/skills/swift/swift-memory-management

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skills/swift/swift-memory-management/SKILL.md

Skill Metadata

Name
swift-memory-management
Description
Prevent retain cycles via ARC, weak/unowned references, and Capture Lists in Swift. Use when managing Swift ARC, avoiding retain cycles, or configuring capture lists in closures.

Swift Memory Management

Priority: P0

Implementation Guidelines

ARC Fundamentals

  • Default: Strong references. ARC handles retain/release automatically.
  • Weak: Use weak if the reference can become nil during its lifetime (delegates, optional parent refs).
  • Unowned: Use unowned if the reference is guaranteed to outlive referring object (rare; prefer weak).

Capture Lists

  • Closures: [weak self] at beginning of the closure's capture list. Pattern: { [weak self] in guard let self = self else { return } }.
  • Self in Structs: No list needed — self copied by value.
  • Multiple Captures: [weak self, weak delegate].

Retain Cycles

  • Delegates: weak var delegate always. Protocol inherits from AnyObject (e.g., protocol MyDelegate: AnyObject {})..
  • Closures as Properties: Use weak or unowned in capture list.
  • Two-way References: One side must weak.

Anti-Patterns

  • No strong var delegate: Use weak.
  • No self in escaping closures: Use [weak self].
  • No unowned unless certain: Default to weak to prevent crashes.

References