iOS Widget & Live Activity Builder

Scaffolds the engagement surfaces that live outside your app: Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets, Lock Screen Live Activities, and Dynamic Island presentations. It wires up the WidgetKit and ActivityKit boilerplate — the widget extension target, the TimelineProvider, the ActivityAttributes, and the push-token plumbing — so you can focus on the layout and data rather than the ceremony. Built for iOS engineers shipping order-tracking, ride, delivery, sports, or workout features.

When to use it

• You're adding a Home Screen widget and don't want to hand-write a TimelineProvider, TimelineEntry, and WidgetConfiguration from scratch.
• You need a Live Activity that shows live progress (delivery ETA, game score, timer) on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island.
• You want server-driven updates to a running activity via ActivityKit push tokens instead of polling.
• You're migrating a StaticConfiguration widget to AppIntentConfiguration for user-editable widgets on iOS 17+.

What it does

The skill generates a Widget Extension target and the matching Swift files:

• A Widget conforming type with either StaticConfiguration or AppIntentConfiguration, plus supportedFamilies (e.g. .systemSmall, .accessoryRectangular, .accessoryCircular).
• A TimelineProvider (or AppIntentTimelineProvider) implementing placeholder, snapshot, and timeline with a chosen TimelineReloadPolicy (.atEnd, .after, .never).
• An ActivityAttributes struct with its nested ContentState, plus the ActivityConfiguration that renders the Lock Screen view and the DynamicIsland { ... } regions: expanded (DynamicIslandExpandedRegion for .leading, .trailing, .center, .bottom), compactLeading, compactTrailing, and minimal.
• ActivityKit lifecycle: Activity.request(...), activity.update(...), activity.end(...), and observing Activity.pushToken / pushTokenUpdates to forward tokens to your server for APNs liveactivity pushes.

It also sets the required Info.plist keys (NSSupportsLiveActivities, NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates) and shares data through an App Group.

Usage example

curl -fsSL --create-dirs -o ~/.claude/skills/ios-widget-live-activity/SKILL.md https://claudeskil.com/skills/ios-widget-live-activity/SKILL.md

# then, in your project:
claude "scaffold a Live Activity for delivery tracking with an
ETA and progress bar, plus Dynamic Island compact + expanded views"

Starting an activity from the app:

let attributes = DeliveryAttributes(orderID: "A17")
let state = DeliveryAttributes.ContentState(eta: .now.addingTimeInterval(900), progress: 0.4)
let activity = try Activity.request(
    attributes: attributes,
    content: .init(state: state, staleDate: nil),
    pushType: .token
)

Tips & gotchas

• Live Activities only run on a physical device with iOS 16.1+; the simulator won't show the Dynamic Island reliably.
• ContentState must be Codable and small — APNs payloads for activity pushes are capped (~4KB).
• Frequent push updates require the NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates key and are still budgeted by the system; design for throttling.
• Widgets and the app must share an App Group, or WidgetCenter.shared.reloadTimelines(ofKind:) will read empty data.

FAQ

Does it support interactive widgets? Yes — it can wire up AppIntent buttons and toggles (iOS 17+) inside the widget body.

Can I update an activity without a server? Yes, call activity.update(...) locally, but background updates while the app is suspended need APNs push tokens.

Which iOS version? WidgetKit needs iOS 14; Live Activities need 16.1; Dynamic Island APIs target iPhone 14 Pro and later.