“Xcode.app must be installed, but it never has to be open.”
Apple’s developer experience is now so bad that avoiding it entirely is a feature worth blogging about. The whole pipeline runs from a shell script and an AI agent, with Xcode reduced to a 40GB dependency you never launch. Apple charges $99 a year for the privilege. Developers routing around your flagship IDE should embarrass someone in Cupertino, but it won’t.