Comment by kall

I have had good success with using xcodegen and only a project.yml checked in. Claude can get tripped up on managing the xcode project xml.

However, before that, i set up a blank project in xcode, used the xcode github integration to create a new repo on github, set up one xcode cloud workflow and use it to push one build to testflight. That way, you get all the automatic config of app ids, profiles etc, and xcode cloud can not be enabled other way. Then tell claude to migrate to xcodegen and to run it in CI automatically.

I've started to develop iOS apps from scratch using only claude code web (no mac), by setting up a "Branch Build" workflow in xcode cloud, and a skill that teaches claude how to check builds and fetch logs.

Along with a workflow that pushes any merge on main to internal TestFlight, the dream of developing iPhone apps on the iPhone finally lives. I've tried most options for this over the years and they never stuck.

These are simple apps that build in 1-5 min on xcode cloud. For larger builds it probably won't work so well.