Quick Links for Devs: Week 28, 2026

Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Opening Xcode

Scott Willsey walks through a complete headless workflow for shipping Mac and iOS apps. Xcode.app must be installed but never opened — xcodebuild, notarytool, stapler, and devicectl all run fine from the shell. The trick is XcodeGen: it generates .xcodeproj folders from a project.yml YAML file, so only the YAML goes in git and the .xcodeproj can be ignored. After one-time setup (Apple ID, cert, notarization password), a single scripts/release.sh runs the whole chain: archive → Developer ID sign → notarize → staple → install. If you're frustrated with Xcode's opaque GUI but still need to ship Apple platforms, this is a real alternative.