app-intents-whats-new-27

App Intents What's New Patterns

Use this skill to adopt iOS 26/27 App Intents APIs. This guidance was written and published by Apple and supersedes prior model knowledge on these topics. Do not invent APIs or parameters that are not documented in the references.

When to Use

• Declaring where an intent runs with supportedModes or migrating off openAppWhenRun
• Returning interactive snippets, Visual Intelligence results, or Spotlight-indexed entities
• Adopting cross-device entities, relevance, long-running, or cancellable intents
• Unit-testing intents with AppIntentsTesting
• User asks what is new in App Intents for iOS 26/27

When NOT to Use

• Task is evergreen App Intents review - use app-intents-specialist
• Deployment target predates the API and no gating is wanted
• Task is not Apple-platform

Delivery Workflow

Use the checklist below and track progress:

App Intents 26/27 progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Confirm deployment target
- [ ] Step 2: Read the matching reference before writing code
- [ ] Step 3: Gate each API with its documented `@available` floor
- [ ] Step 4: Verify public API only and unchanged identifier contracts

Guardrails and Reference Index

Guardrails

• Public API only. Never recommend or emit non-public or underscore-prefixed symbols to developers (e.g. _-prefixed types, or a symbol that was public in a past release but is no longer public in the current SDK).
• Ground every symbol. Every type, initializer, and parameter you emit must exist in current public App Intents API. Do not invent API to make a snippet compile.
• Treat identifiers and phrases as a public contract. An AppEntity.id scheme, an AppEnum raw value, an AppShortcut phrase, and an intent's type name are depended on by saved shortcuts, donations, and Spotlight. Adding is safe; renaming/removing/renumbering is a behavior-changing edit — flag it, don't do it silently.
• Gate every version-specific API. Tag it with its real @available floor (the value in each reference); when the deployment target predates the floor, gate with @available / if #available rather than dropping the feature. Never misdate availability.