App Intents

App Intents, Widgets & Live Activities

Expose your app's actions and surface them across the system — Siri, Shortcuts, Spotlight, widgets, Control Center, the Action button, and Live Activities. One App Intent powers all of them. Verify signatures against the apple-docs MCP (get_symbol, list_framework AppIntents); see ios26-api-reference for crash-prone API gotchas.

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App Intents — the foundation

An AppIntent is a unit of app functionality the system can run. Define it once; reuse it in Shortcuts, Siri, widgets, and controls.

import AppIntents

struct StartFocusIntent: AppIntent {
    static let title: LocalizedStringResource = "Start Focus Session"
    static let description = IntentDescription("Begins a focus session.")

    @Parameter(title: "Duration (minutes)")
    var minutes: Int

    // Bring the app to the foreground when run? Default false (runs in background).
    static let openAppWhenRun = false

    @MainActor
    func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult & ProvidesDialog {
        try await FocusEngine.shared.start(minutes: minutes)
        return .result(dialog: "Started a \(minutes)-minute session.")
    }
}

• perform() is async throws and returns some IntentResult. Compose result types: & ProvidesDialog, & ReturnsValue, & OpensIntent, & ShowsSnippetView.
• @Parameter values can be requested interactively by Siri/Shortcuts when missing.
• Keep perform() fast and @MainActor only where it touches UI/model state (see ios-standards).

Entities & queries (let intents operate on your data)

struct Project: AppEntity {
    static let typeDisplayRepresentation: TypeDisplayRepresentation = "Project"
    static let defaultQuery = ProjectQuery()
    var id: UUID
    var displayRepresentation: DisplayRepresentation { DisplayRepresentation(title: "\(name)") }
    let name: String
}

struct ProjectQuery: EntityQuery {
    func entities(for ids: [UUID]) async throws -> [Project] { /* fetch */ }
    func suggestedEntities() async throws -> [Project] { /* recents */ }
}

AppEntity + EntityQuery let parameters be picked from your real data and make intents work with "the project named X".

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App Shortcuts — zero-setup Siri & Spotlight

AppShortcutsProvider auto-registers phrases. No user setup; they appear in Spotlight and Siri immediately after install.

struct FocusShortcuts: AppShortcutsProvider {
    static var appShortcuts: [AppShortcut] {
        AppShortcut(
            intent: StartFocusIntent(),
            phrases: ["Start a focus session in \(.applicationName)"],
            shortTitle: "Start Focus",
            systemImageName: "timer"
        )
    }
}

• Always include \(.applicationName) in at least one phrase per shortcut — Siri requires it.
• App Shortcuts are limited (~10); reserve them for your highest-value actions.

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Interactive widgets (iOS 17+)

Widgets run intents directly from Button(intent:) / Toggle(intent:) — no app launch.

// In the widget view
Button(intent: StartFocusIntent(minutes: 25)) { Label("Focus", systemImage: "play.fill") }
Toggle(isOn: isActive, intent: ToggleFocusIntent()) { Text("Active") }

Use an AppIntentTimelineProvider so the timeline reacts to intent-driven state. Keep widget work tiny; heavy lifting belongs in the app/shared model.

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Controls (iOS 18+) — Control Center, Lock Screen, Action button

struct FocusControl: ControlWidget {
    var body: some ControlWidgetConfiguration {
        StaticControlConfiguration(kind: "com.app.focus") {
            ControlWidgetToggle("Focus", isOn: FocusState.isActive, action: ToggleFocusIntent()) { isOn in
                Label(isOn ? "On" : "Off", systemImage: "timer")
            }
        }
    }
}

ControlWidgetButton / ControlWidgetToggle are backed by App Intents. The same control can be assigned to the Action button by the user.

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Live Activities & Dynamic Island (ActivityKit)

Show real-time, glanceable state on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.

import ActivityKit

struct FocusAttributes: ActivityAttributes {
    struct ContentState: Codable, Hashable { var remaining: TimeInterval }
    var sessionName: String
}

// Start (in-app)
let activity = try Activity.request(
    attributes: FocusAttributes(sessionName: "Deep Work"),
    content: .init(state: .init(remaining: 1500), staleDate: nil)
)

// Update
await activity.update(.init(state: .init(remaining: 1200), staleDate: nil))

// End
await activity.end(nil, dismissalPolicy: .immediate)

UI is a Widget whose body is an ActivityConfiguration with a Lock Screen view and a DynamicIsland { ... } (compact/minimal/expanded regions).

Constraints:

• Requires NSSupportsLiveActivities = YES in Info.plist.
• ContentState must stay small (~4KB) and Codable.
• Remote updates use ActivityKit push tokens with apns-push-type: liveactivity — see push-notifications.
• Use Text(timerInterval:) for self-updating countdowns instead of pushing every second.

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Where this connects

• push-notifications — remote Live Activity / widget updates.
• ios26-api-reference — App Intents / ActivityKit crash patterns and availability.
• ios-standards — concurrency/isolation rules for perform() and shared state.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: markdavidgan
• Source: markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.