What is apple-dev-mcp CLAUDE.md?

A set of instructions for developing the apple-dev-mcp project, including its build, test, lint, and development commands.

Use it when changing or maintaining the Apple development reference server and when running its checks.

It gives the coding agent project-specific guidance instead of requiring it to infer how the repository works.

How tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp configures Claude Code

Reuse

Borrowing it

Nothing to install: this file belongs to tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp. Take a copy, put it at the same path in your own repository, and replace the rules that are about this project with yours.

Copy the file

curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/main/CLAUDE.md

Clone the repo

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp

Made for: Claude Code.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

README.md

[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md)

Your own site

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

Your own site · 80×15

<a href="https://agentmods.dev/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/instructions/tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp/claude-md.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>

Per session 2,792 This file is loaded in full into every session.

When invoked 2,792 The same file — it is already loaded in full.

Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.

Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.

Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

Model	Per session	Once invoked
Fable 5.1	$0.02792	$0.02792
Opus 5.5	$0.01117	$0.01117
Sonnet 5.5	$0.00558	$0.00558
Haiku 4.5	$0.00279	$0.00279

Measured 2mo ago against content hash 0a52fcc1a8c4, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-10-07, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

apple-dev-mcp CLAUDE.md scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2mo ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

CLAUDE.md · 308 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 308 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

CLAUDE.md

This file provides guidance to Claude Code (claude.ai/code) when working with code in this repository.

Project Overview

This is an Apple Dev MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides complete Apple development guidance, combining Human Interface Guidelines (design principles) with Technical Documentation (API reference) for all Apple platforms. It serves comprehensive content through both traditional MCP integration and modern Desktop Extensions (.dxt) for AI assistants like Claude.

Development Commands

Build and Test

npm run build - Compile TypeScript to JavaScript in dist/
npm run clean:build - Clean and rebuild the project
npm test - Run Jest test suite
npm run test:watch - Run tests in watch mode
npm run lint - Run ESLint on TypeScript files
npm run lint:fix - Fix linting issues automatically

Development

npm run dev - Start development server using tsx
npm start - Run compiled server from dist/
npm run test:automation - Automated MCP server testing

Testing with MCP Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector dist/server.js

Architecture Overview

The project uses a static content architecture with pre-built markdown files and optimized search indices. All content is pre-processed and cached for instant access without external dependencies:

Core Components

AppleHIGMCPServer (src/server.ts) - Main MCP server entry point
- Coordinates all components and handles MCP protocol communication
- Sets up request handlers for resources and tools
- Manages graceful startup/shutdown
- Initializes static content services
StaticContentSearchService (src/services/static-content-search.service.ts) - Primary content search engine
- Fast search across 113+ pre-processed Apple HIG sections
- Smart keyword matching with synonym expansion
- Platform-specific filtering and relevance scoring
- No external dependencies required
HIGCache (src/cache.ts) - Smart caching layer
- TTL-based caching with graceful degradation
- Backup cache entries for offline resilience
- Two-tier caching: fresh data + stale fallback data
- Methods: getWithGracefulFallback(), setWithGracefulDegradation()

Read the full file on GitHub · 308 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

2mo ago First seen · 308 lines · 2,792 tokens per session scan A 0a52fcc1a8c4

Subscribe to this mod's changes

apple-dev-mcp CLAUDE.md is an instructions file published in the GitHub repository tmaasen/apple-dev-mcp (21 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It adds 2,792 tokens to every session, about $0.0112 per session on Opus 5.5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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apple-dev-mcp: Instructions file for Claude Code