lynnswap/webinspectorkit

Features

• DOM tree browsing
• Network request logging
• Built-in DOM and Network tabs

Requirements

• Swift 6.3+
• iOS 18.4+
• macOS 15.4+ on Apple silicon for the non-UI products

Platform Notes

• The current implementation targets UIKit on iOS.
• AppKit support is planned to be rebuilt separately.

Products

| Product | Use when | | --- | --- | | WebKitRuntime | You implement native WebKit features and need shared symbol discovery and scoped page access. | | WebInspectorKit | You want the built-in UIKit inspector UI. | | WebInspectorDataKit | You want observable DOM, Network, Console, Runtime, and CSS models for a custom UI. | | WebInspectorDataKitTesting | You want deterministic WebInspectorContext startup synchronization in tests. | | WebInspectorProxyKit | You want typed Web Inspector protocol commands and events directly over an inspected WKWebView. | | WebInspectorProxyKitTesting | You want a controllable proxy backend and protocol fixtures without the native WebKit bridge. |

Quick Start

UIKit

Prepare the shared UI runtimes during asynchronous app setup before constructing inspector views:

try await WebInspectorSession.prepare()

Await completion and handle preparation failures in your app's startup flow. Repeated calls reuse preparation across the process. Then create the inspector:

import UIKit
import WebKit
import WebInspectorKit

final class BrowserViewController: UIViewController {
    private let pageWebView = WKWebView(frame: .zero)

    @objc private func presentInspector() {
        let inspector = WebInspectorViewController()
        inspector.modalPresentationStyle = .pageSheet
        if let sheet = inspector.sheetPresentationController {
            sheet.detents = [.medium(), .large()]
            sheet.selectedDetentIdentifier = .medium
        }
        Task { @MainActor in
            try await inspector.attach(to: pageWebView)
            present(inspector, animated: true)
        }
    }
}

Attaching to a loaded page populates Network with the page and frame resources that WebKit still retains, then continues recording live requests. Restored resources may have no HTTP status, headers, or timing information. This matches Web Inspector's resource-tree snapshot; it does not recover every past request. If the snapshot fails, WebInspectorContext.networkResourceTreeError reports the failure while live Network recording continues.

Tabs

let inspector = WebInspectorViewController(
    tabs: [.dom, .network]
)

The built-in tab surface exposes DOM and Network tabs. Apps can also add UIKit tabs with a UIViewController factory:

let consoleTab = WebInspectorTab(
    id: "app_console",
    title: "Console",
    systemImage: "terminal"
) { session in
    ConsoleViewController(inspectorSession: session)
}

let inspector = WebInspectorViewController(
    tabs: [.dom, .network, consoleTab]
)

Native runtime foundation

WebKitRuntime is a separate product for native WebKit integrations. It provides asynchronous C++/linker symbol lookup, image and section validation, shared successful lookup caching, and scoped access to a WKWebView's native page. Symbol resolution, typed C++ and Objective-C++ invocation, bounded memory reads, and pointer discovery use ABIBridge. WebKit-specific layouts, page-wrapper access, and Inspector protocol adapters remain in WebInspectorKit. It has no Inspector session or UI dependency. Objective-C++ consumers use WebKitRuntimeObjC.h from the same product for native page access.

import WebKitRuntime

let symbol = RuntimeSymbol(
    .cxx("WebKit::WebPageProxy::legacyMainFrameProcessPtrForSwift() const"),
    in: .webKit,
    kind: .function
)
let resolved = try await WebKitRuntime.resolve([symbol])

This example resolves an optional private entry point; it does not call it or guarantee its availability. Consumers own native calling conventions, object layouts, and IPC schemas. Handle lookup failures for the feature that needs them. See the WebKitRuntime DocC documentation for page lifetime and memory read contracts.

Documentation

The DocC workflow publishes package documentation to GitHub Pages.

| Document | Purpose | | --- | --- | | Migration Guide | Version-by-version source migration notes for app code. | | WebInspectorKit UIKit implementation | UIKit inspector implementation notes and UI/DataKit ownership boundaries. | | WebKit Version Mapping | Local notes for mapping iOS WebKit framework versions to public WebKit source refs. | | Inspector Integration Fixture | Manual verification with Monocly and fixture regression tests. |

Project Structure

Sources/
  WebInspectorKit/             Public built-in inspector product.
  WebInspectorDataKit/         Observable inspector model product.
  WebInspectorDataKitTesting/  Deterministic DataKit consumer test helpers.
  WebInspectorProxyKit/        Typed protocol proxy product.
  WebInspectorProxyKitTesting/ Controllable proxy test runtime and fixtures.
  WebInspectorUI*/             Shared UIKit resources and DOM/Network content.
  WebInspectorNativeBridge*/   Internal Swift/Objective-C++ bridge targets.
  WebKitRuntime*/              Shared native runtime product targets.
Tests/
  WebInspectorNativeBridgeTests/   Native bridge and runtime tests.
  WebInspectorNativeSymbolFixtures/ Native symbol fixtures.
Docs/
  MIGRATION.md                 Version-by-version migration notes.
  WebKitVersionMapping.md      WebKit runtime/source mapping notes.

License

See LICENSE.

Package Metadata

Repository: lynnswap/webinspectorkit

Default branch: main

README: README.md