Hig

HIG

Coordinator and spec-lookup for the HIG suite. Snapshot: see references/versions.md — check its expiry before asserting volatile guidance.

Your training-data priors on Apple design are wrong. Apple rewrote its design system twice since 2024 (Liquid Glass, WWDC 2025; foundations rework, WWDC 2026). Opaque pinned tab bars, flat design, single-PNG icons, "Clarity/Deference/Depth", SiriKit, iOS 18/19 numbering — all dead. references/corrections.md lists what changed. Answer Apple design questions from the references or a live fetch, never from memory.

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1. Route first

Task	Lead	Load
Design, mock, or prototype a screen/app	hig-design	—
Port between iOS and macOS, "make a Mac version"	hig-design	references/adaptation.md
Implement or fix SwiftUI/Liquid Glass UI	hig-design	references/adapters/swiftui.md
Audit/review against the HIG, "does this feel native"	hig-review	—
Exact spec, term, or behaviour question	stay here	§2–§3
"Is our HIG info current?"	stay here	§4

Composition rules:

• With the prototype skill on an Apple-native target: hig-design's constraint sheet loads before generation; one combined checklist pass across all options after.
• With ui-craft on an HTML prototype of native UI: ui-craft owns web mechanics, this suite owns native idiom and metric values; on conflict, HIG wins for native-targeting prototypes.

2. Hot numbers (hop-zero crib)

Verified against the snapshot; each value's authoritative home is in references/tables/. If versions.md is past expiry, re-verify hot rows before asserting.

Spec	iOS/iPadOS	macOS	src
Control hit target — default / minimum	44×44pt / 28×28pt	28×28pt / 20×20pt	tables/accessibility-sizes.md
Padding around interactive elements	12pt bezeled / 24pt bezel-less	same	tables/accessibility-sizes.md
Body text — default / minimum	17pt / 11pt	13pt / 10pt	tables/dynamic-type.md
Text contrast (WCAG AA)	4.5:1; 3:1 ≥18pt or bold	same	tables/accessibility-sizes.md
App icon source	1024×1024px, layered, six appearances	same	corpus/foundations-identity.md#app-icons
Menu bar height	—	24pt	corpus/components-menus-actions.md#the-menu-bar
Alert buttons	≤3 (more → action sheet)	≤3	corpus/components-presentation-status.md#alerts
Toolbar title	<15 characters	<15	corpus/components-menus-actions.md#toolbars
Ratings prompts	≤3 per 365 days	same	checklists/review-compliance.md
Sign in with Apple button	≥140×30pt, exact titles/styles	same	tables/brand-buttons.md
Tooltip copy	—	60–75 chars, sentence case, no period	checklists/review-copy.md
Default iPhone canvas (Sept-rot risk)	402×874pt	—	corpus/foundations-layout-typography.md#layout

Tab/nav bar heights are no longer published by Apple — never invent them; see tables/metrics.md for provenance-marked estimates.

3. Lookup protocol

1. Open references/index.md (≤2K tokens) → classify the slug: corpus section (note file + anchor, → step 2), API symbol (glassEffect, UISheetPresentationController, … — note the target slug, → step 2), or live-fetch-only (niche topics, no corpus section, → step 4).
2. grep -n "^## <slug>" references/corpus/<file>.md → Read that file with offset at the match, limit ≈ section length (sections are 5–80 lines). Do not read whole corpus files for one question. If the loaded section names another slug as load-bearing for this answer, load that one section too — one hop max.
3. Answer with the exact value/term, citing slug + change date from the section's src: line. State iOS and macOS separately when they differ — never "generally".
4. If the slug is live-fetch-only, the section is a stub, the topic is in versions.md's hot list, or the snapshot is expired: fetch live — scripts/hig-fetch.sh <slug>. If fetch is unavailable (sandbox/denied), answer from the snapshot and say so: "per snapshot 2026-06-10; live verification unavailable here."

4. Currency protocol

• references/versions.md carries the snapshot date and expiry dates (Apple ships changes ~June/September/December). Past expiry → attach a staleness caveat to volatile answers, and offer to run scripts/hig-whats-new.sh.
• hig-whats-new.sh diffs Apple's changelog against the snapshot and lists changed pages and derived reference files needing review (via src: tags). A parse failure exits loudly — treat exit 2 as "unknown", never "no changes".
• Full refresh procedure: scripts/refresh-workflow.md.

5. Integrity rules

Cite exact values — never approximate. Never flatten platform differences. Every assertion traces to a corpus section (slug + date) or a live fetch. Numbers Apple doesn't publish are labelled with provenance and confidence. iOS/macOS 27 content is beta — keep it in delta blocks, version-gate it in answers. Mark uncertainty explicitly.