core-data-migrations

core-data-migrations is a skill for Claude Code from markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills. It costs 162 tokens per session (2,447 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A guide to changing the data model used by Core Data, Apple's system for storing app data. It explains model versions and migrations, which update existing users' stored data to match a new model.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding, renaming, retiring, or restructuring Core Data fields and when checking that existing stores migrate safely before release.
Why use it?
It helps prevent data loss, missing values, or databases that stop opening after an app update.

Skill for Claude Code

Written for Claude Code: shipped in a Claude Code plugin.

Part of the apple-dev-skills plugin — 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/core-data-migrations
Any agent
npx skills add markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills --skill core-data-migrations
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills

Made for: Claude Code.

Or install apple-dev-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents.

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.

agentmods badge for core-data-migrations

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/core-data-migrations.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/core-data-migrations)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/core-data-migrations"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/core-data-migrations.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 162 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,447 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
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.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00162 $0.02447
Opus 5 $0.00081 $0.01223
Sonnet 5 $0.00032 $0.00489
Haiku 4.5 $0.00016 $0.00245

Measured 2d ago against content hash 7d3ace39dfbb, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-05, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

core-data-migrations 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 2d 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.

platforms/claude/skills/core-data-migrations/SKILL.md · 139 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 139 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Core Data Migrations

Changing a shipped Core Data model is a data-safety operation, not an edit. The model on disk belongs to the user; the model in the repo is a proposal for how to reinterpret it. Every rule here exists because the failure mode is silent — a bad migration usually does not throw, it just hands back nil where the bytes used to be.

Read this before touching any .xcdatamodel that has shipped to anyone, including TestFlight.

The one rule that prevents most incidents

Never edit a model version that has shipped. Add a new one.

A .xcdatamodeld is a bundle of versions plus an .xccurrentversion pointer. Editing the current version in place changes the store's expected shape without changing its version hashes, so Core Data has no idea a migration is needed and no way to describe one. Symptoms range from "store won't open" to attributes silently reading nil.

Near.xcdatamodeld/
  Near 18.xcdatamodel/contents   ← shipped, frozen forever
  Near 19.xcdatamodel/contents   ← shipped, frozen forever
  Near 20.xcdatamodel/contents   ← the new one you edit
  .xccurrentversion              ← points at "Near 20.xcdatamodel"

Copy the current version's directory, rename it, edit the copy, and repoint .xccurrentversion. If the project is generated (XcodeGen, Tuist), regenerate afterwards — a new version directory that the project does not reference produces a build that silently keeps using the old model.

What lightweight migration actually supports

Inferred (lightweight) migration handles a specific list. Anything outside it needs a mapping model or a manual pass:

Supported — adding an attribute (optional, or non-optional with a default); removing an attribute; removing an entity; adding an entity; changing an attribute from non-optional to optional; changing optional to non-optional with a default; adding or removing a relationship; changing a relationship's cardinality; toggling allowsExternalBinaryDataStorage.

Read the full file on GitHub · 139 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.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 139 lines · 162 tokens per session scan A 7d3ace39dfbb

Subscribe to this mod's changes

core-data-migrations is a skill published in the GitHub repository markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills (5 stars, last pushed 6d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 162 tokens to every session and 2,447 once invoked, about $0.0008 per session on Opus 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 2026-09-03.

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