Xcode 26.3: AI agents like Claude and Codex directly in development

With version 26.3 of Xcode, Apple is significantly expanding the possibilities for developing with artificial intelligence. In a release candidate published on Tuesday evening, coding agents such as Anthropic's Claude Agent and OpenAI's Codex can be used directly within the development environment in Xcode. The new features build upon the integration of external Large Language Models (LLMs) into Xcode 26, which already allowed source code to be automatically passed to popular chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude without tedious copy & paste.

However, the previous integration has its limitations: models cannot see the full context of a request, and in many ways, they cannot act independently and must ask the developer for permission or instruct them. For developers, the coding intelligence, in its current degree of development, was already a significant help. After Apple initially pursued plans for its own LLM in Xcode in 2024, which were not published, the iPhone manufacturer's new approach of integrating external models was met with positive feedback at the WWDC developer conference in June 2025.

MCP Support and Many New Possibilities

The expansion in Xcode 26.3 creates entirely new possibilities. Apple has extended its software so that any agent that supports the open-source Model Context Protocol (MCP) can work with Xcode in the future. This allows AI to examine the project structure, change project settings, create a test build, and perform automated tests. By analyzing build logs, the AI can automatically continue to build its code until the project compiles without errors. The agents can also access Apple's current documentation, enabling them to support new APIs better than before.

The AI agents can also take screenshots of Xcode to see what the developer is currently seeing. All of this is also optimized to reduce token usage – and thus costs.

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One-Click Installation

Installation is simple: agents can be installed with one click via the settings. Currently, ChatGPT, Claude, or other models can be activated there. Developers therefore do not need to use the terminal and command line, as they would for Claude Code, for example. Changes made are made visible in the source code with a marker, as usual, and should be easy to undo.

Xcode 26.3 is initially available as a release candidate for all members of the Apple Developer Program. The release in the App Store is expected shortly.

(mki)