# HIG Doctor [Health: Active]

**Category:** 💻 Developer Tools  
**Repository:** https://github.com/raintree-technology/hig-doctor  
**GitHub Stars:** 148  
**npm Downloads (last month):** 1839  
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**Installs:** 0  
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**Directory Page:** https://allmcps.com/mcp/hig-doctor

## Description
Apple Human Interface Guidelines search, lookup, and project audits for AI coding agents.

## Claude Desktop Quick Installation
Install path detected from listing signals. Uses `npx` (confidence: high):

```json
"mcpServers": {
  "hig-doctor": {
    "command": "npx",
    "args": ["-y","hig-doctor"]
  }
}
```

## Documentation

## What HIG Doctor MCP server does

HIG Doctor MCP server gives AI coding agents access to interface guidance and source-audit functions. Its reference tools search and retrieve topics from a frozen snapshot containing 14 skills and 156 topics. The corpus covers areas such as accessibility, layout, navigation, controls, platform behavior, privacy, motion, and Apple technologies. Apple’s live Human Interface Guidelines remain the canonical source; the repository organizes and cross-references attributed reference material rather than replacing it.

The server also exposes the same rule catalog used by the project’s command-line interface and core package. It can inspect a project or individual file, identify potential interface and accessibility concerns, and explain a finding using its rule and reference information. Apple-platform code is checked against the HIG directly, while web and cross-platform code uses universal accessibility and interface-quality rules aligned with those principles.

## How it works

The MCP package supports stdio and streamable HTTP transports. Its six tools cover skill listing, topic lookup, corpus search, project audits, file audits, and finding explanations. Agents can first discover available skills or search for a topic, then request an audit and use the explanation tool to understand a reported rule.

Audit analysis follows framework detection, a comment- and string-aware regular-expression scan, structural refinement where supported, and categorized reporting. Swift analysis follows chained modifiers to remove findings that are handled in context. When available, the TypeScript compiler refines selected JSX accessibility checks. Each finding records the analysis engine that produced it.

The rule catalog spans 14 frameworks, including SwiftUI, UIKit, AppKit, watchOS, visionOS, React and Next.js, CSS and SCSS, Vue, Angular, Svelte, Flutter, Jetpack Compose, Android XML, and React Native. The published inventory contains 431 rules, but that number represents catalog coverage rather than complete HIG compliance.

## Setup and configuration

Run the MCP package with `npx -y hig-mcp`. Configuration details depend on the MCP client and are documented in the repository’s MCP package README. The server can be connected through either supported transport: stdio for local process-based clients or streamable HTTP for an HTTP-based setup.

The broader project also provides a separate audit CLI, started with `npx hig-doctor .`, and a core package for embedding the rule engine. Those are alternative surfaces rather than prerequisites for using the MCP server.

## Tools and capabilities

- List the available HIG skills.
- Search the frozen reference corpus.
- Look up individual guidance topics.
- Audit complete projects or individual files.
- Explain reported findings with rule and reference context.
- Report severity, location, rule ID, fix guidance, and a supporting source reference.

## Limitations and notes

HIG Doctor MCP server provides review support, not proof of accessibility, design quality, or conformance. Regex fallback analysis can have different precision from structural analysis, and project-specific circumstances may justify a documented suppression. The reference corpus is a dated snapshot, and content changes are human-reviewed rather than automatically converted into new guidance.

Apple owns the Human Interface Guidelines content. Reference material retains attribution and canonical source URLs. Web and cross-platform checks are aligned with HIG principles but are not presented as direct Apple HIG coverage. Generated explanations should therefore be treated as bounded assistance alongside developer review and the current Apple documentation.

_Full upstream README: https://allmcps.com/mcp/hig-doctor/readme_