Building and shipping Mac and iOS apps without opening Xcode(scottwillsey.com)
513 points by speckx 19 hours ago | 218 comments
tl;dr: Once Xcode is installed and configured (Apple ID signed in, Developer ID cert created, notarytool credentials stored), you can ship Mac and iOS apps entirely from the command line using xcodebuild, notarytool, stapler, devicectl, and XcodeGen—no GUI required. The author's setup consists of a `release.sh` script that handles the archive → sign → notarize → staple → install pipeline, plus a `CLAUDE.md` file that tells Claude Code how to use it. This lets an LLM agent handle the entire build/ship workflow without ever opening Xcode.
HN Discussion:
  • ~Security concerns about running agents directly on Mac without sandboxing
  • You can go further and build iOS apps entirely from Linux without macOS
  • Xcode MCP with Xcode running is actually faster and more capable than pure CLI
  • ~CLI-based Apple app building is a long-established practice, not novel
  • Cross-platform frameworks like Expo are a better choice for agent-driven development