Cupertino MCP Server

Content

Cupertino is a Swift-based Apple documentation CLI and MCP server. It gives Claude and other MCP clients a local searchable index for Apple Developer Documentation, Swift.org pages, Swift Evolution proposals, Human Interface Guidelines, Apple Archive guides, the Swift Book, Swift package metadata, and Apple sample-code files.

Use it when an Apple-platform project needs fast API lookup, framework search, sample-code discovery, HIG checks, or Swift language context without manually opening multiple documentation sites. The same local index powers terminal commands such as cupertino search and the stdio MCP server launched by cupertino serve.

Source Review

• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/README.md
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/LICENSE
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/Packages/Package.swift
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/docs/mcp-clients.md
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/docs/commands/serve/README.md
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/docs/tools/search/README.md
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/Packages/Sources/CLI/Commands/CLIImpl.Command.Serve.swift
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/Packages/Sources/MCP/Core/Server/MCP.Core.Server.swift
• https://github.com/mihaelamj/cupertino/blob/main/Packages/Sources/MCP/Core/Transport/MCP.Core.Transport.Stdio.swift

These sources were reviewed on 2026-06-06. Prefer the live repository, README, license, Swift package manifest, MCP client setup guide, serve command documentation, search tool documentation, CLI serve implementation, MCP server implementation, and stdio transport implementation for current install and behavior details.

Features

• Search Apple Developer Documentation, Swift Evolution, Swift.org, the Swift Book, HIG pages, Apple Archive guides, Swift package metadata, and Apple sample-code files.
• Read documentation through MCP resources such as apple-docs://, swift-evolution://, and hig:// URIs.
• Run unified full-text search through the search MCP tool with source, framework, language, archive, limit, and platform-version filters.
• List frameworks and read selected documents from the local index.
• Explore sample projects with list_samples, read_sample, and read_sample_file.
• Search extracted Swift symbols, property wrappers, concurrency APIs, conformances, generics, and inheritance relationships.
• Use the same local databases from the terminal CLI or from stdio MCP clients.

Installation

Install with Homebrew and download the pre-built databases:

brew tap mihaelamj/tap
brew install cupertino
cupertino setup

Add Cupertino to Claude Code:

claude mcp add cupertino --scope user -- $(which cupertino)

For JSON-based MCP clients, use the installed binary path:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "cupertino": {
      "command": "/opt/homebrew/bin/cupertino",
      "args": ["serve"]
    }
  }
}

Codex users should include --no-reap as documented upstream:

codex mcp add cupertino -- $(which cupertino) serve --no-reap

Restart the MCP client after adding the server.

Use Cases

• Ask Claude to look up current SwiftUI, UIKit, AppKit, Foundation, or platform-framework APIs.
• Check Human Interface Guidelines while designing an Apple-platform interface.
• Find Swift Evolution proposals related to a language feature.
• Search Apple sample code before implementing a framework integration.
• Compare framework availability across iOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, visionOS, or Swift versions.
• Keep local documentation access available during offline development.
• Give an agent deterministic Apple API context before it proposes code.

Safety and Privacy

Cupertino primarily serves public documentation from a local database, but documentation prompts can still disclose private development context. Keep proprietary source code, unreleased app plans, customer requirements, private bundle identifiers, and internal roadmap details out of prompts unless that disclosure is approved.

The initial setup downloads a large bundle and self-refresh workflows can crawl public documentation sources. Review disk space, cache locations, organization network policy, and Apple documentation terms before using it on shared or managed machines.

Documentation can change quickly around new platform releases. Verify compatibility-sensitive, beta, deprecated, or security-relevant guidance against live Apple documentation before shipping code.

Duplicate Check

content/mcp/apple-docs-mcp-server.mdx already covers kimsungwhee/apple-docs-mcp, an npm-based third-party Apple Docs server. Cupertino is a distinct implementation from mihaelamj/cupertino: it is a Swift CLI plus MCP server with a local offline documentation bundle, per-source SQLite indexes, HIG, Swift Evolution, Swift.org, Swift Book, Swift package, sample-code, and AST-symbol search coverage. No mihaelamj/cupertino entry or matching source URL was found in content/mcp.