Cupertino - Apple Documentation Search

Search 300,000+ Apple developer documentation pages offline.

Setup

First-time setup (downloads ~2.4GB database):

cupertino setup

Workflow

To answer questions about Apple APIs, first search for relevant documents, then read the most relevant result:

1. Search: cupertino search "NavigationStack" --source apple-docs --format json
2. Read: cupertino read "<uri-from-results>" --format markdown

If the database is not set up, run cupertino setup first.

Commands

Search Documentation

Search across all sources (apple-docs, samples, hig, swift-evolution, swift-org, swift-book, packages):

cupertino search "SwiftUI View" --format json
cupertino search "SwiftUI View" --format json --limit 5

Filter by source:

cupertino search "async await" --source swift-evolution --format json
cupertino search "NavigationStack" --source apple-docs --format json
cupertino search "button styles" --source samples --format json
cupertino search "button guidelines" --source hig --format json

Filter by framework:

cupertino search "@Observable" --framework swiftui --format json

Read a Document

Retrieve full document content by URI:

cupertino read "apple-docs://swiftui/documentation_swiftui_view" --format json
cupertino read "apple-docs://swiftui/documentation_swiftui_view" --format markdown

List Frameworks

List all indexed frameworks with document counts:

cupertino list-frameworks --format json

List Sample Projects

Browse indexed Apple sample code projects:

cupertino list-samples --format json
cupertino list-samples --framework swiftui --format json

Read Sample Code

Read a sample project or specific file:

cupertino read-sample "foodtrucksampleapp" --format json
cupertino read-sample-file "foodtrucksampleapp" "FoodTruckApp.swift" --format json

Sources

Output Formats

All commands support --format with these options:

• text - Human-readable output (default for most commands)
• json - Structured JSON for parsing
• markdown - Formatted markdown

Example JSON Output

{
  "results": [
    {
      "uri": "apple-docs://swiftui/documentation_swiftui_vstack",
      "title": "VStack",
      "framework": "SwiftUI",
      "summary": "A view that arranges its children vertically",
      "source": "apple-docs"
    }
  ],
  "count": 1,
  "query": "VStack"
}

Tips

• Use --source to narrow searches to a specific documentation source
• Use --framework to filter by framework (e.g., swiftui, foundation, uikit)
• Use --limit to control the number of results returned
• URIs from search results can be used directly with cupertino read
• Legacy archive guides are excluded from search by default; add --include-archive to include them