Sentry Cocoa SDK

All Skills > SDK Setup > Cocoa SDK

Sentry Cocoa SDK

Opinionated wizard that scans your Apple project and guides you through complete Sentry setup.

Invoke This Skill When

• User asks to "add Sentry to iOS/macOS/tvOS" or "set up Sentry" in an Apple app
• User wants error monitoring, tracing, profiling, session replay, or logging in Swift/ObjC, or metrics in Swift
• User mentions sentry-cocoa, SentrySDK, or the Apple/iOS Sentry SDK
• User wants to monitor crashes, app hangs, watchdog terminations, or performance

Note: SDK versions and APIs below reflect Sentry docs at time of writing (sentry-cocoa 9.15.0). Always verify against docs.sentry.io/platforms/apple/ before implementing.

Phase 1: Detect

Run these commands to understand the project before making any recommendations:

# Check existing Sentry dependency
grep -rEi "sentry|sentry-cocoa|SentrySPM|SentrySwiftUI" \
  --include="Package.swift" --include="Podfile" --include="Cartfile" \
  --include="Package.resolved" --include="project.pbxproj" . 2>/dev/null | head -20

# Detect UI framework (SwiftUI vs UIKit)
grep -rE "@main|struct .*: App" --include="*.swift" . 2>/dev/null | head -5
grep -rE "AppDelegate|UIApplicationMain|@UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor" --include="*.swift" . 2>/dev/null | head -5

# Detect platform and deployment targets
grep -rE "platforms:|\\.iOS|\\.macOS|\\.tvOS|\\.watchOS|\\.visionOS|IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET|MACOSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET|TVOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET|WATCHOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET|XROS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET" \
  --include="Package.swift" --include="project.pbxproj" . 2>/dev/null | head -20
grep -E "platform :ios|platform :osx|platform :tvos|platform :watchos" Podfile 2>/dev/null

# Detect logging
grep -rE "import OSLog|import os\\.log|Logger\\(|CocoaLumberjack|DDLog" --include="*.swift" . 2>/dev/null | head -5

# Detect companion backend
ls ../backend ../server ../api 2>/dev/null
ls ../go.mod ../requirements.txt ../Gemfile ../package.json 2>/dev/null

What to note:

• Is sentry-cocoa already in Package.swift or Podfile? If yes, skip to Phase 2 (configure features).
• SwiftUI (@main App struct) or UIKit (AppDelegate)? Determines init pattern.
• Which Apple platforms? (Affects which features are available — see Platform Support Matrix.)
• Existing logging library? (Enables structured log capture.)
• SwiftUI tracing import/product? SentrySwiftUI still exists but is deprecated in SDK 9.4.1+; prefer the main Sentry module for released binary products.
• Companion backend? (Triggers Phase 4 cross-link for distributed tracing.)

Phase 2: Recommend

Based on what you found, present a concrete recommendation. Don't ask open-ended questions — lead with a proposal:

Recommended (core coverage):

• Error Monitoring — always; crash reporting, app hangs, watchdog terminations, NSError/Swift errors
• Tracing — always for apps; auto-instruments app launch, network, UIViewController, file I/O, Core Data
• Profiling — production iOS/macOS apps; UI profiling via configureProfiling

Optional (enhanced observability):

• Session Replay — user-facing iOS apps; verify masking on iOS 26+ / Liquid Glass builds
• Logging — when structured log capture is needed
• Metrics — Swift apps needing aggregate counters, gauges, or distributions
• User Feedback — apps that want crash/error feedback forms from users

Not available for Cocoa:

• Crons — backend only
• AI Monitoring — JS/Python only

Recommendation logic:

Propose: "I recommend Error Monitoring + Tracing + Profiling. Want me to also add Session Replay and Logging?"

Phase 3: Guide

Install

Option 1 — Sentry Wizard (recommended):

You need to run this yourself — the wizard opens a browser for login and requires interactive input that the agent can't handle. Copy-paste into your terminal: `` brew install getsentry/tools/sentry-wizard && sentry-wizard -i ios `` It handles login, org/project selection, auth token setup, SDK installation, AppDelegate updates, and dSYM/debug symbol upload build phases. Once it finishes, come back and skip to [Verification](#verification).

If the user skips the wizard, proceed with Option 2 (SPM/CocoaPods) and manual setup below.

Option 2 — Swift Package Manager: File → Add Packages → enter:

https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa.git

Or in Package.swift:

.package(url: "https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa", from: "9.15.0"),

SPM Products — choose exactly one per target:

Warning: Xcode allows selecting multiple products — choose only one. If using SentrySPM from source, current source-build projects may import SentrySwift instead of Sentry; verify the module name in the target. Released binary products use import Sentry.

Swift 6.1+ trait-based opt-out of UIKit/AppKit (requires Package@swift-6.1.swift manifest):

// Package.swift (Swift 6.1+)
.package(
    url: "https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa",
    from: "9.15.0",
    traits: ["NoUIFramework"]
),

// In your target's dependencies:
.product(name: "SentrySPM", package: "sentry-cocoa")

This is the preferred opt-out path for command-line/headless targets on Swift 6.1+. It compiles the SDK from source so the trait can remove UIKit/AppKit/SwiftUI linkage. For Swift < 6.1 continue using Sentry-WithoutUIKitOrAppKit.

Note: Package traits are visible in the Xcode UI starting with Xcode 26.4+. On older Xcode versions, traits still work when declared in Package.swift but won't appear in the GUI.

Option 3 — CocoaPods (deprecated; prefer SPM):

platform :ios, '15.0'
use_frameworks!

target 'YourApp' do
  pod 'Sentry', :git => 'https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa.git', :tag => '9.15.0'
end

Sentry plans to stop publishing CocoaPods releases at the end of June 2026; use this only for existing CocoaPods projects.

Known issue (Xcode 14+): Sandbox rsync.samba error → Target Settings → "Enable User Script Sandbox" → NO.

Option 4 — SentryObjC (for pure Objective-C/C++ projects):

For pure Objective-C or Objective-C++ projects that cannot enable Clang modules (e.g., -fmodules=NO), use the SentryObjC wrapper SDK. It provides the same functionality as the main SDK but with pure Objective-C headers that don't require Swift module imports.

SPM:

.package(url: "https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-cocoa", from: "9.17.1"),

// In your target's dependencies:
.product(name: "SentryObjC", package: "sentry-cocoa")