Are Icon Composer icons compatible with SkipLite projects?

[djch]

I cannot figure out how to get Xcode 26 to compile my SkipLite app with an Icon Composer icon. I drop it into the Darwin/ folder in the project, reference the name appropriately in the Xcode target settings, remove the references to the .appiconset asset... and it builds with an empty/blank icon on iOS 26.

Does anyone have this working?

[dfabulich]

Yes, I have an Icon Composer icon working for my app, and I just tried setting it up in a blank project and it worked.

Note that since we're just talking about Xcode 26 and iOS 26, Skip actually has nothing to do with it. You can turn Skip completely off by setting SKIP_ACTION = none in Darwin/MyApp.xcconfig. All the iOS stuff then works as well as anything ever does in Xcode.

A couple gotchas:

1. Testing updating the icon sometimes(?) requires uninstalling your app each time you want to change it. It's been a while, but I remember getting good use out of completely resetting the simulator, via the Device --> Erase All Content and Settings menu. (That bug might be fixed, but my main point is to bring an appropriate level of superstition to this process. Don't trust Xcode to get this right.)

2. Skip projects are extremely weird, even with Skip fully disabled with SKIP_ACTION = none. There's an xcworkspace and a Package.swift in the root directory, and an xcodeproj in the Darwin subdirectory, which includes a file reference to the SwiftPM project at the root level, and the project references an "App" file group pointing back to the Darwin directory containing the project itself. 😵‍💫

   Putting your .icon directory in the Darwin directory is necessary but not sufficient. Seeing the .icon in Xcode's project navigator is necessary but also not sufficient. The files must be referenced by the right entity, i.e. by the project, not the workspace, and not the SwiftPM package.

Having said all that, here's what I did:

1. I created a fresh Skip Lite project with skip create. It created a broken AppIcon asset, with no actual icon in it, and it references that icon via ASSETCATALOG_COMPILER_APPICON_NAME = AppIcon in MyApp.xcconfig. In principle, you could click on Assets.xcassets, click on AppIcon, and drag in a 1024x1024 png icon, and you'd have a working icon. But it's 2026, so we're gonna do it with Icon Composer.
2. In Xcode, I clicked on Assets.xcassets, then clicked on AppIcon, right-clicked, and deleted the AppIcon resource.
3. I launched Icon Composer, created a new document, and just saved the default blue gradient icon, as Darwin/AppIcon.icon.
4. I didn't yet see AppIcon.icon in Xcode. I right-clicked on the App group (the grey folder) and selected the Add Files to "My App"... option.
5. I pointed it to my AppIcon.icon and added it. On the next dialog, I used "Action: Reference files in place", "Groups: Create groups", and under Targets, "MyApp App" was checked." I clicked Finish, and the icon was added.
6. I ran the build in the iOS simulator, and it had a blue gradient icon.

Of course, that didn't make any icon appear on the Android side. You can use skip icon to help you cook an Android icon from scratch, but it doesn't know anything about Icon Composer yet. #504

But, I did toy around with a converter from Icon Composer to Android Adaptive Icons. If you wanna give it a whirl, I think you'd be the first person to use it other than me! https://github.com/dfabulich/convert-apple-icon-composer-to-android-adaptive-icon

[djch]

Thanks @dfabulich! I got it working shortly after posting this. The fix for me was manually updating project.pbxproj file with those references like ASSETCATALOG_COMPILER_APPICON_NAME = AppIcon. All was well after that. Deleted the old .appiconset elements and Xcode 26 gracefully handled the backwards compatibility for iOS 18 and below too.

I have also just tried your convert-apple-icon-composer-to-android-adaptive-icon utility and it worked really well! Now have exactly the icons I want for both platforms.

Thanks again for sharing all this.