audit-swiftui-appearance-color

name	audit-swiftui-appearance-color
description	Audit macOS SwiftUI appearance color for correctness, current APIs, and production conventions. Use for that domain or as part of a full audit.

Bundled resource root

Let <swiftui-plugin-root> be the absolute plugin directory two levels above this SKILL.md. Resolve that path before running commands or opening shared references. When these instructions say swiftui-ctx, invoke <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx; do not assume the command is on PATH.

Audit SwiftUI Appearance & Color

AUDIT-ONLY · macOS-only · SwiftUI-only. Run this on a finished or in-progress macOS SwiftUI project to detect — and where certain, fix — every way appearance and color go wrong on a macOS 26 (Tahoe) target: hardcoded Color(red:green:blue:) / Color.white / Color.black that freeze one appearance, deprecated .foregroundColor / .accentColor, opaque Color backgrounds where a Material belongs, a force-set .preferredColorScheme that overrides the user's system appearance, ignored Increase-Contrast, and invented or cross-platform color APIs. Findings are written to disk in the toolkit's unified schema; certain mechanical defects are fixed under the fix-safety protocol. This is never a from-scratch theming generator.

Two of this domain's modifiers deprecate at macOS 26.5 (after most training data), so AI frequently emits .foregroundColor and .accentColor, and pads dark-broken literal RGB throughout. Be suspicious wherever AI set a color.

Boundary / seam note (stay in lane)

• The .foregroundColor(_:) / .accentColor(_:) deprecation flag is owned by audit-swiftui-api-currency; this skill owns the positive .foregroundStyle hierarchy / asset-catalog / .tint craft. Emit cross_ref: api-currency on ac-03/ac-04; do not double-own the flag.
• Liquid Glass surfaces (glassEffect, the .glass button styles, GlassEffectContainer) belong to audit-swiftui-liquid-glass. A plain Material (.ultraThinMaterial …) that is the right chrome fill stays here; a missing glass surface routes there. Emit cross_ref: liquid-glass on ac-06.
• WCAG ratios, Differentiate-Without-Color, and the trait-level a11y audit belong to audit-swiftui-accessibility; this skill detects the mechanics (an ignored colorSchemeContrast), a11y owns the contrast requirement. Emit cross_ref: accessibility on ac-07.
• AppKit NSColor / NSVisualEffectView vibrancy is out of scope — note it in one line and point to the future audit-appkit-interop / audit-appkit-overuse skills.

Domain rules

1. Color is semantic, not literal. Use a system color (.primary, .secondary, Color.accentColor) or a named asset-catalog color that carries Any/Dark variants. A raw Color(red:green:blue:) or Color.white/.black paints one appearance and breaks Dark Mode.
2. Style the foreground through the hierarchy. .foregroundStyle(.secondary) / .tertiary adapts to appearance and vibrancy; a hardcoded gray does not. .foregroundColor is deprecated at 26.5.
3. Let chrome breathe with a Material. Sidebars, overlays, popovers, and bars behind content want .ultraThinMaterial/.regularMaterial (or a glass surface), not an opaque Color fill.
4. Never force the appearance app-wide. .preferredColorScheme(.dark) at the root overrides the user's macOS system setting — an anti-pattern. Scope it to a deliberate preview/island only.
5. Honor Increase Contrast. Read @Environment(\.colorSchemeContrast) and branch where custom colors would otherwise fall below the system contrast.

Defect index (ac-01 … ac-08)

id · tell · severity · fix · open reference. Severities: hard-fail (never-correct / invented), warning (compiles but non-native / breaks Dark Mode / deprecated), advisory (judgment / craft). auto = mechanical single-answer fix; flag = show the ✅, dev applies.

id	One-line tell	Sev	Fix	Reference
ac-01	hardcoded Color(red:green:blue:) / Color(.sRGB…) literal RGB → breaks Dark Mode	warning	flag	colors-semantic-and-assets.md
ac-02	Color.white / Color.black / Color(white:) as content fg/bg → no Dark-Mode adapt	warning	flag	colors-semantic-and-assets.md
ac-03	.foregroundColor(_:) deprecated 26.5 → .foregroundStyle(_:) (+ .secondary hierarchy)	warning	auto	colors-semantic-and-assets.md
ac-04	.accentColor(_:) deprecated 26.5 → .tint(_:)	warning	auto	colors-semantic-and-assets.md
ac-05	forced .preferredColorScheme(_:) at app/root scope → overrides user appearance	warning	flag	color-scheme-and-contrast.md
ac-06	opaque Color background where a Material belongs (sidebar/overlay/bar)	advisory	flag	materials-and-vibrancy.md
ac-07	custom colors with no @Environment(\.colorSchemeContrast) branch under Increase Contrast	advisory	flag	color-scheme-and-contrast.md
ac-08	invented / cross-platform color API: .textColor(, .backgroundColor(, .tintColor(, UIColor	hard-fail	flag	colors-semantic-and-assets.md

Currency seam: ac-03 and ac-04 carry cross_ref: api-currency (currency flags the deprecation; appearance owns the replacement craft). ac-06 carries cross_ref: liquid-glass; ac-07 carries cross_ref: accessibility.

The real API, at a glance

Real (exist on macOS 26): Color (.primary, .secondary, Color.accentColor, named asset-catalog Color("Brand")), foregroundStyle(_:) (macOS 12+, takes a ShapeStyle hierarchy — .secondary/.tertiary), tint(_:) (Color overload macOS 12+; the ShapeStyle overload is macOS 13+), Material (.ultraThinMaterial … macOS 12+), @Environment(\.colorScheme) / @Environment(\.colorSchemeContrast) (macOS 10.15+), preferredColorScheme(_:) (macOS 11+, for scoped use), ShapeStyle hierarchy levels (.primary/.secondary/.tertiary/.quaternary/.quinary — all macOS 12+). foregroundColor(_:) and accentColor(_:) still resolve but are deprecated at macOS 26.5 → foregroundStyle(_:) / tint(_:).

Invented / cross-platform (never SwiftUI-on-macOS): .textColor(_:), .backgroundColor(_:), .tintColor(_:), .foregroundColour(_:), UIColor (UIKit — absent on macOS; the bridge is Color(nsColor:)). Confirm any uncertain name via swiftui-ctx lookup <api> (exit 3 = no shipping Mac app uses it) + the canonical invented-name list in <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/hallucination-blacklist.md — read, never restate.

Floor / deprecation values are the reconciled truth in <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/floors-master.md — read, never restate the table here.

The 8-step audit workflow (execute verbatim)

1. ORIENT. tree / find the SwiftUI sources. Read the deployment target (project.pbxproj MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET, or Package.swift platforms:). It is load-bearing: the ac-03/ac-04 deprecations are advisory below their 26.5 close and become live-warning at/after it. Also note whether an asset catalog (*.xcassets) with color sets exists — its presence changes the ac-01/02 ✅ to "move the literal into a color set." Record both.

2. LOCATE. Run the shared hybrid lint runner: bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-lint.sh --skill audit-swiftui-appearance-color --dir <sources> --json /tmp/ac.json --sarif /tmp/ac.sarif. It runs this skill's tier-1 grep tells (lint/grep-tells.tsv) + the tier-2 structural ast-grep rule (lint/ast-grep/*.yml — the multi-arg Color(red:green:blue:) init grep can't reliably anchor across lines), a per-file parse probe, and emits unified JSON + SARIF. Read its parse_warnings — a flagged file did not fully parse, so a structural miss can't masquerade as clean; READ those by hand. The runner only LOCATES. Engine + rule-file format + degradation: <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/lint-architecture.md.

3. READ. Open every located file in full — never pattern-match-and-patch blind. Whether a literal color is a content fill vs a deliberate brand mark, whether a Color background is chrome that wants a Material, whether a .preferredColorScheme is app-root vs a scoped preview, and whether a view even has custom colors that need a contrast branch are all invisible to grep. Build a per-file inventory: each color site + literal-or-semantic + its surface (content/chrome) + its scheme/contrast handling.

4. DETECT. Apply the index. Assign each candidate a confidence; report a finding only at 100% certainty (an invented name, a literal Color(red:, a root .preferredColorScheme).

5. VERIFY. For anything ≤ ~70% confidence (a symbol you're unsure exists, a floor you can't place, a deprecation you can't date), run both evidence sources. (a) Practice — bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx lookup <api> --json (and bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx deprecated <api> for ac-03/ac-04): read its consensus (the canonical shape), deprecated+replacement, recommended permalink, introduced_macos, and co_occurs_with; a lookup exit 3 (not-found, with a did-you-mean suggestion) corroborates an ac-08 hallucination — no shipping Mac app uses the symbol. (b) Spec — confirm via Sosumi: curl -sSL https://sosumi.ai/<apple-path> using references/source-directory.md for the path and <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/sosumi-reference.md for the protocol (never WebFetch developer.apple.com). Cross-check introduced_macos against floors-master.md and the Sosumi doc: floor. The CLI contract is <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/swiftui-ctx-reference.md. Promote with the citation or discard.

   Deeper corpus evidence (this domain's VALUE vocabulary). To ground an ac-06 Material pick or an ac-01/02 semantic-color/gradient replacement in the real vocabulary, run bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx valueBuilders (filter e.g. gradient/material; Color/Material/gradient builders ranked by usage) and bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx conformances ShapeStyle (and … conformances ButtonStyle) for custom ShapeStyle/ButtonStyle conformers (stable envelope + next_actions + permalinks), and bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx examples foregroundStyle --shape "(_)" for the consensus modifier shape ((_), 100%). E.g. the corpus material consensus is .regular (10,238 uses / 978 repos) — not .ultraThin (32 / 13): prefer .regularMaterial as the ac-06 ✅ unless the surface is genuinely a thin overlay. Per the shared CLI surface in swiftui-ctx-reference.md.

6. REPORT. Write each confirmed finding (output contract below). One finding per file, zero-padded, ordered. Write the run's _index.md.

7. FIX. Apply corrections under the fix-safety protocol (<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/fix-safety-protocol.md): clean-tree gate, findings-first, only fix_mode: auto (ac-03 .foregroundColor(x) → .foregroundStyle(x); ac-04 .accentColor(x) → .tint(x) — identical-argument mechanical renames), one conventional commit per finding citing its rule_id, never weaken a check. The ✅ "Correct" is not a hand-written snippet — it is the swiftui-ctx consensus shape put in ## Correct, backed by a real macOS example fetched with bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-ctx file <recommended.id> --smart whose GitHub permalink (plus the Sosumi doc:) goes in ## Source. Leave flag-only findings open with that ✅. The verified canonical .foregroundStyle(_:) ✅ — the live swiftui-ctx consensus shape (_) (100 %), grounded in real corpus code, not a placeholder:

   // ✅ Correct — swiftui-ctx `lookup foregroundStyle` consensus `(_)` (100%); real example
   //    sindresorhus/Gifski `ex_032f0b9e2b` (author_authority 1,013,769, 8,409★, min_macos 26)
   Circle()
       .stroke(lineWidth: lineWidth)
       .opacity(0.3)
       .foregroundStyle(.secondary)   // adapts to appearance + vibrancy; no frozen literal
   // permalink: https://github.com/sindresorhus/Gifski/blob/7f873856e2acd8b52e6681dee3aec31e6cab23e4/Gifski/Utilities.swift#L5192
   // doc: https://sosumi.ai/documentation/swiftui/view/foregroundstyle(_:)
   

8. DOUBLE-CHECK. Re-grep each fixed file to confirm the tell no longer matches; record the evidence in ## Fix applied?. Re-confirm every citation still resolves. If a fix introduced a new tell (e.g. a .foregroundStyle you wrote now takes a literal Color(red: that should be a hierarchy/asset color), loop that file back to DETECT.

Confidence gating (load-bearing)

Report a finding only at 100% certainty. Anything ≤ ~70% goes to VERIFY (step 5) before it can become a finding — never emit a speculative finding. Auto-fix only the mechanical set (ac-03, ac-04 — both pure same-argument renames); everything else is fix_mode: flag-only.

Output contract

Inherits the toolkit's unified contract (full schema + body sections + frontmatter keys: <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/finding-schema.md — do not restate it). Specialized for this domain:

• Findings: swiftui-audits/appearance-color/<context>/NN-slug.md (one finding per file, zero-padded, ordered). Per-run index: swiftui-audits/appearance-color/_index.md.
• domain: appearance-color. Frontmatter is the canonical schema; fix_mode is auto for ac-03/ac-04, else flag-only. availability reads from floors-master.md. source is an Apple URL + access date (fetched via Sosumi) or verify against Xcode 26 SDK. Emit cross_ref for ac-03/ac-04 (api-currency), ac-06 (liquid-glass), ac-07 (accessibility).

Starter <context> folders (file here when…):

<context>	File a finding here when…
hardcoded-color/	a literal RGB / white / black color paints one appearance, or an invented color API appears (ac-01, ac-02, ac-08)
deprecated-modifiers/	.foregroundColor or .accentColor is used at/under their 26.5 close (ac-03, ac-04)
color-scheme/	the appearance is force-set app-wide, or Increase Contrast is ignored (ac-05, ac-07)
materials/	an opaque Color fills chrome that should breathe with a Material (ac-06)

New-folder rule: if a finding does not fit any existing context folder, create a new one under swiftui-audits/appearance-color/ with a lowercase-hyphen slug naming the sub-category, and note it in the run's _index.md. Prefer an existing folder when the fit is reasonable; consistency across runs is a hard requirement. Two runs over the same code produce structurally identical trees.

Reference routing

File	Open when
references/colors-semantic-and-assets.md	literal RGB / white-black colors, the .foregroundColor→.foregroundStyle and .accentColor→.tint rewrites, asset-catalog color sets, invented color names (ac-01/02/03/04/08)
references/materials-and-vibrancy.md	an opaque Color where a Material belongs, the Material-vs-glass boundary, vibrancy (ac-06)
references/color-scheme-and-contrast.md	force-set .preferredColorScheme, honoring colorScheme/colorSchemeContrast, Increase Contrast (ac-05/07)
references/source-directory.md	step VERIFY — the Apple/WWDC/practitioner source map fetched via Sosumi
lint/grep-tells.tsv + lint/ast-grep/*.yml	step LOCATE — this skill's declarative lint rule set fed to the shared runner (tier-1 grep tells + the tier-2 structural Color(red:green:blue:) init rule); edit here to tune detection

Shared toolkit references (point in, never restate):

Shared file	For
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/floors-master.md	every floor/availability/deprecation value (the reconciled truth)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/hallucination-blacklist.md	the canonical invented-name list (ac-08)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/macos-arm-gating.md	the macOS-arm gating rule (any #available near a color symbol)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/finding-schema.md	the unified finding schema + frontmatter keys
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/fix-safety-protocol.md	the fix-safety protocol (step 7)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/sosumi-reference.md	the Apple-doc spec fetch protocol (step 5 VERIFY)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/swiftui-ctx-reference.md	the practice-corpus CLI contract — lookup/deprecated/file --smart for the consensus shape + permalinked example (steps 5 VERIFY · 7 FIX)
<swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/cross-ref-graph.md	seam ownership + cross_ref targets (api-currency, liquid-glass, accessibility)

Detection accelerator

bash <swiftui-plugin-root>/scripts/swiftui-lint.sh --skill audit-swiftui-appearance-color --dir <files-or-dir> [--json out.json] [--sarif out.sarif] — the toolkit's one shared hybrid lint engine, fed this skill's declarative rules: tier-1 grep tells (lint/grep-tells.tsv, ac-01…ac-08) + a tier-2 ast-grep structural rule (lint/ast-grep/ac-01-hardcoded-rgb.yml — the Color(red:green:blue:) literal init, anchored on the call so the multi-line / multi-arg form grep can't reliably catch is caught structurally). It runs a per-file parse probe (surfaces "did not fully parse"), emits unified JSON + SARIF, exits 2 on any hard-fail (ac-08) for a CI gate, and degrades to grep-only with a notice if ast-grep is unreachable (npx --package @ast-grep/cli ast-grep; faster: brew install ast-grep). It only LOCATES — always READ each hit in full before reporting (step 3). The legacy scripts/appearance-lint.sh is a thin pointer to this runner. Engine + rule-file format + JSON/SARIF shape + safety rails: <swiftui-plugin-root>/references/_shared/lint-architecture.md.