Thomas Ricouard's Agentic iOS Workflow

Table of content

Thomas Ricouard is a Staff iOS Engineer at Medium and creator of IceCubesApp, a Mastodon client built entirely in SwiftUI with over 6,800 GitHub stars. He spent only 2% of his time in Xcode last year, instead building iOS apps through Cursor and Claude Code.

Background

Ricouard has shipped multiple open-source SwiftUI apps:

IceCubesApp - Mastodon client (6.8k stars)
MovieSwiftUI - Movie database app with custom Redux (6.5k stars)
RedditOS - macOS Reddit client (4k stars)
IcySky - BlueSky client

He works at Medium and previously worked at Google. Based in France, he blogs at dimillian.medium.com and shares his workflows extensively.

The Agentic iOS Stack

Ricouard’s workflow replaces Xcode as the primary editor while keeping it as a build system:

Tool	Purpose
Cursor	Primary editor with AI completion
Claude Code	Agentic coding in Cursor or terminal
XcodeBuildMCP	Build, run, manage simulators
Swift LSP	Code highlighting and navigation
Xcodebuild	Compilation backend
GitHub Copilot (Xcode extension)	Occasional Xcode work

From his State of Agentic iOS Engineering post:

“As iOS developers, we’re used to Xcode, but let me get this straight: I probably spent only 2% of my time actually in Xcode last year.”

XcodeBuildMCP Integration

XcodeBuildMCP is the bridge that lets AI agents build and test iOS apps. Install it in your Claude MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xcodebuild": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@anthropic-ai/xcodebuild-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The MCP server provides:

Project discovery - Find schemes, targets, build settings
Build execution - Run xcodebuild with proper flags
Simulator control - List, boot, install, launch apps
Error feedback - AI reads build output and fixes issues

From his XcodeBuildMCP workflow article:

“The Cursor Agent can now build, run, and see your app!”

Vibe Coding SwiftUI

Ricouard tested Claude 4 on iOS projects using his “vibe coding” methodology:

Create empty SwiftUI project in Xcode
Open project in Cursor
Describe the app you want
Let Claude generate structure, views, and models
Use XcodeBuildMCP to validate compilation

Results:

Claude created organized folder structures automatically
Generated repositories for data retrieval
Built working SwiftUI views with proper architecture

His verdict on Claude and SwiftUI:

“It’s quite good at SwiftUI. It consistently finds the correct way to do stuff, fixes issues, and does what I requested.”

Claude Code in Cursor

Ricouard evolved from using Cursor’s built-in agent to Claude Code:

“I’ve switched from using the Cursor agent to using Claude Code in my terminal to using Claude Code in Cursor itself because the integration is so good!”

The combination gives you:

Claude’s superior Swift/SwiftUI understanding
Cursor’s file navigation and editing
Terminal access for build commands
XcodeBuildMCP for Xcode automation

Open Source Tools

Ricouard created supporting tools for his workflow:

Codex Skill Manager - macOS app to manage Codex, Claude Code, and other AI agent skills

AppRouter - SwiftUI navigation package extracted from IcySky using Claude Code:

“Thanks to Claude Code, I was able to extract code from my Icy Sky codebase into a standalone Swift Package in minutes instead of hours - it did the renaming, documentation, etc.”

Workflow Example

Starting a new iOS feature:

You: Create a settings screen with toggle for dark mode,
     notification preferences, and account management.
     Use the existing UserSettings model.

Claude: I'll create a SettingsView with these sections...
        [creates SettingsView.swift, SettingsViewModel.swift]
        [uses XcodeBuildMCP to build and verify]
        Build succeeded. The app runs on simulator.

For existing codebases, Claude reads the project structure and follows established patterns.

Key Takeaways

Principle	Implementation
Skip Xcode editing	Use Cursor as primary editor
Keep Xcode for builds	XcodeBuildMCP bridges the gap
Trust Claude on SwiftUI	It understands Apple frameworks well
Start in Xcode, edit in Cursor	Create project properly, then switch
Use MCP for automation	Let agents control simulators and builds

Links

Next: Jesse Vincent’s Superpowers Framework