Swift/SwiftUI Best Practices

SwiftUI View Composition

• Break views into small, single-responsibility components; extract reusable pieces into View structs
• Use @ViewBuilder for conditional and grouped content; prefer composition over deep nesting
• Apply modifiers consistently -- chain them in a logical order: layout -> appearance -> accessibility
• Use ViewModifier protocol for reusable modifier groups shared across views
• Keep view bodies free of business logic; move computation to ViewModels or use computed properties on the model

Swift Concurrency

• Use async/await as the primary concurrency model; avoid completion handlers in new code
• Adopt Actor for shared mutable state isolation: actor DataStore { ... }
• Use TaskGroup for structured concurrency when spawning dynamic child tasks
• Apply .task modifier in SwiftUI for view-scoped async work that cancels on disappear
• Use Sendable conformance to guarantee thread-safe value types across concurrency boundaries

SwiftData

• Define models with @Model macro; use @Relationship for references and @Attribute for constraints
• Use ModelContainer to configure storage: in-memory for previews, persistent for production
• Query with @Query in SwiftUI views; apply #Predicate for type-safe filtering and sorting
• Keep model types simple -- derive computed properties for presentation logic rather than storing derived data
• Use ModelContext directly in ViewModels for batch inserts, deletes, and background saves

UIKit Interop

• Use UIViewControllerRepresentable and UIViewRepresentable to wrap UIKit components in SwiftUI
• Delegate pattern: implement the delegate protocol in a coordinator class nested inside the representable
• Use UIHostingController to embed SwiftUI views within UIKit navigation flows
• Prefer SwiftUI-native solutions before falling back to UIKit; only interop when no SwiftUI equivalent exists

visionOS Spatial Computing

• Use RealityView for 3D content and ImmersiveSpace for full-room experiences
• Apply Volume for bounded 3D windows and Window for traditional 2D-style panels
• Use ARKit skeleton tracking and hand tracking via HandTrackingProvider for spatial input
• Design for comfort: keep content at comfortable distances, avoid rapid depth changes, provide rest states
• Test spatial UI in the visionOS simulator with varied room layouts before device testing

Testing and Quality

• Use Swift Testing framework (@Test, @Suite) for new test targets alongside XCTest for compatibility
• Write PreviewProvider or #Preview macros for every SwiftUI view to enable live canvas development
• Apply SwiftLint or SwiftFormat consistently; enforce rules in CI with swift-format
• Use Instruments for profiling: Time Profiler, Allocations, and Leaks for performance validation

Source: calcosmic/Aether — distributed by TomeVault.