Peek
An open-source iOS framework for runtime inspection of your application's UI, layout, and accessibility attributes.
What is Peek?
Peek is an open-source iOS framework that enables runtime inspection of your application's user interface, layout, and attributes while it runs on a device or simulator. It solves the problem of verifying UI implementations, checking design specs, and validating accessibility without needing to rebuild or pause the app.
iOS developers, UI/UX designers, and QA testers who need to inspect and debug live applications during development, design verification, or testing phases.
Developers choose Peek because it offers a comprehensive, non-intrusive inspection tool with a unified interface, nested inspectors, and accessibility insights, all while maintaining a minimal footprint and ensuring safety with read-only access.
Overview
All new design. Inspect your iOS application at runtime.
Use Cases
Best For
- Inspecting UI layouts and constraints at runtime on iOS devices
- Verifying design specifications against implemented interfaces
- Checking accessibility identifiers and attributes during testing
- Debugging view hierarchies without Xcode's view debugger
- Exporting screenshots and metadata for bug reporting
- Exploring nested view properties in complex iOS applications
Not Ideal For
- Cross-platform teams needing inspection tools that work across iOS and Android
- Projects focused on debugging backend logic, network performance, or memory issues rather than UI
- Environments with strict policies against adding third-party dependencies, even in debug builds
- Teams that rely exclusively on Xcode's integrated debuggers and prefer zero-setup tools
Pros & Cons
Pros
Consolidates all inspectors into a single window for faster and simpler navigation, as emphasized in the README's 'Unified Inspectors' section.
Supports nested inspectors to access more than double the attributes of previous versions, allowing detailed exploration of complex view hierarchies.
Requires only one line of code to enable and has a lightweight architecture with a small footprint, reducing overhead in your app.
Surfaces accessibility details from the app, supports Dynamic Type, and allows exporting reports via iOS native share sheets for easy bug documentation.
Cons
Requires additional code to handle shake gestures in the simulator, adding configuration steps compared to the simpler device setup.
Different Swift versions need specific Peek releases, which can complicate updates and maintenance for projects on older Swift versions.
Only supports iOS 9.0 and above, excluding other Apple platforms like macOS or tvOS, and not backward-compatible with older iOS versions.
Frequently Asked Questions
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