Development Apple Xcode [Xcode] Using Claude Opus 4.6 in Xcode 26.3

Overview

Xcode 26.3 supports Claude Code as an agentic coding assistant. However, the default model may not be the latest version. This guide covers how to configure Xcode 26.3 Release Candidate to use the Claude Opus 4.6 model.

Steps

1. Copy the Claude Code binary

Xcode’s agentic coding assistant internally uses a Claude Code binary. Copy the desired version of the binary to the following path.

cp $(which claude) ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/CodingAssistant/Agents/Versions/26.3/claude

If the claude binary is not installed, first install the Claude Code CLI.

curl -fsSL https://claude.ai/install.sh | bash

2. Create settings.json

Create a settings.json file to change the model to Claude Opus 4.6.

cat <<'EOF' > ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/CodingAssistant/ClaudeAgentConfig/settings.json
{
  "model": "claude-opus-4-6"
}
EOF

3. Verify

After the configuration is complete, restart Xcode. The Claude Opus 4.6 model will be applied when using the agentic coding assistant.

3.1. Directory structure

After configuration, the directory structure should look like this.

~/Library/Developer/Xcode/CodingAssistant/
├── Agents/
│   └── Versions/
│       └── 26.3/
│           └── claude          # Claude Code binary
└── ClaudeAgentConfig/
    └── settings.json           # {"model": "claude-opus-4-6"}

References

Leave a comment