SweetPad — build, debug, and test iOS apps in VS Code

What it does (and what it doesn't)

• Build & Run — launches any scheme to a simulator, macOS, or connected device; eight task actions (launch, build, run, clean, test, resolve-dependencies, debugging-launch, debugging-run) are auto-registered as VS Code tasks
• Debugging — LLDB via CodeLLDB (vadimcn.vscode-lldb), which is a hard dependency; press F5 after a one-time launch.json setup
• Testing — integrates the VS Code Testing panel; runs XCTest and Swift Testing with gutter ▶ buttons
• Simulator & device management — lists all simulators and connected iOS devices in a Destinations panel, including iOS 17+ physical device tunneling via pymobiledevice3
• Format on save — delegates to swift-format from the active Xcode toolchain (or a custom formatter path)

Setup in five steps

# 1. Install system dependencies
brew install xcode-build-server xcbeautify

1. Install swiftlang.swift-vscode (language services)
2. Install sweetpad.sweetpad (Xcode project management)
3. Open your .xcworkspace or .xcodeproj folder — SweetPad auto-detects it and shows a Build panel in the sidebar
4. Run SweetPad: Generate Build Server Config from the Command Palette → creates buildServer.json in the project root
5. Run SweetPad: Build (without Run) once to populate SourceKit-LSP's index (clears import-not-found errors)

{
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "sweetpad-lldb",
      "name": "Debug — SweetPad",
      "request": "launch",
      "preLaunchTask": "sweetpad: launch",
      "continueOnAttach": true
    }
  ]
}

Scheme management and useful settings

{
  // Filter noisy auto-generated schemes
  "sweetpad.build.schemes.include": ["MyApp*", "MyLib*"],
  "sweetpad.build.schemes.exclude": ["*-Debug-*"],

// Pin a specific Xcode version (useful for CI parity)
  "sweetpad.build.xcodebuildCommand": "/Applications/Xcode-16.3.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild",

// Custom DerivedData location (keep out of project root)
  "sweetpad.build.derivedDataPath": "${workspaceFolder}/../.build/DerivedData",

// Pass extra xcodebuild flags
  "sweetpad.build.args": ["-skipMacroValidation"],

// Enable build output beautifier (requires: brew install xcbeautify)
  "sweetpad.build.useXcbeautify": true,

// Format Swift on save
  "[swift]": {
    "editor.defaultFormatter": "sweetpad.sweetpad",
    "editor.formatOnSave": true
  }
}

{
  // Experimental: routes -list/-showBuildSettings/-version to a bundled Rust binary
  // "Significantly faster for large projects" — package.json setting description
  "sweetpad.system.useSweetpadLib": true
}

What's new: hot reload and Agent CLI

Known limitations

Install