Amplify project setup

For this section you will set up a skeleton project so that Amplify categories can be added to it.

1. Create a new project

Open Xcode. From the menu bar, select "File -> New -> Project..."

Select iOS tab, choose Application type as App and then click on Next.

Fill in the following for your project:

• Product Name: MyAmplifyApp
• Interface: SwiftUI
• Language: Swift
• Tap Next

After tapping Next, select where you would like to save your project, then tap Create. In this example, you will choose: ~/Developer

You should now have an empty iOS project without Amplify.

2. Install Amplify Libraries

import Amplify
import AWSAPIPlugin
import AWSDataStorePlugin

cd ~/Developer/MyAmplifyApp

pod init

target 'MyAmplifyApp' do
  use_frameworks!
  pod 'Amplify'
end

pod install --repo-update

xed .

3. Provision the backend with Amplify CLI

To start provisioning resources in the backend, change directories to your project directory and run amplify init:

cd ~/Developer/MyAmplifyApp/
amplify init

Enter the following when prompted:

? Enter a name for the project
    MyAmplifyApp
? Enter a name for the environment
    dev
? Choose your default editor:
    Visual Studio Code
? Choose the type of app that you're building
    ios
? Do you want to use an AWS profile?
    Yes
? Please choose the profile you want to use
    default

Upon successfully running amplify init, you should see two new created files in your project directory: amplifyconfiguration.json and awsconfiguration.json. These two files must be manually added to your project so that they are bundled with your application. This is required so that Amplify libraries know how to reach your provisioned backend resources.

To add these configuration files to your project, open finder within your project and drag both amplifyconfiguration.json and awsconfiguration.json to the Xcode window, under your project's folder as seen in this screenshot:

• Enable Copy items if needed if not already enabled
• For “Added folders”, have Create groups selected.
• For “Add to targets”, make sure the app target (MyAmplifyApp) is checked.

Click Finish to add these files to your project as shown in this screenshot:

Now you can build (Cmd+b) and run (Cmd+r) your application.

4. Initialize Amplify in the application

Open AppDelegate.swift or MyAmplifyApp.swift and add import Amplify at the top of the file:

import Amplify

Update the following function to verify that Amplify can be compiled into your project:

func application(
    _ application: UIApplication,
    didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?
) -> Bool {
    do {
        try Amplify.configure()
    } catch {
        print("An error occurred setting up Amplify: \(error)")
    }
    return true
}

Note: If your app conforms to the App protocol, you can use your own AppDelegate class. Implement an AppDelegate and point Swift UI's UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor property wrapper to it, as below.

class AppDelegate: NSObject, UIApplicationDelegate {
    func application(
        _ application: UIApplication,
        didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey : Any]? = nil
    ) -> Bool {
        do {
            try Amplify.configure()
        } catch {
            print("An error occurred setting up Amplify: \(error)")
        }
        return true
    }
}
@main
struct MyAmplifyApp: App {
    @UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor(AppDelegate.self) var appDelegate

    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            ContentView()
        }
    }
}

Build your project (Cmd+b), then you have successfully added the Amplify library to your project and you should be able to run the application.

Optionally, if you'd like to see additional log messages of what amplify is doing during configuration, you can turn on verbose logging before calling Amplify.configure():

do {
    Amplify.Logging.logLevel = .verbose
    // Configure Amplify as usual...
    try Amplify.configure()
    // ...

Re-running the application with verbose logging on, you will see the following messages:

[Amplify] Configuring
[Amplify] Configuration: nil

Next steps

Congratulations! You've created a skeleton app and are ready to start adding Amplify categories to your application. The following are some categories that you can start to build into your application:

• Analytics - for logging metrics and understanding your users
• API (GraphQL) - for adding a GraphQL endpoint to your app
• API (REST) - for adding a REST endpoint to your app
• Authentication - for managing your users
• DataStore - for making it easier to program for a distributed data store for offline and online scenarios
• Geo - to use location data and map UI components.
• Predictions - to detect text, images, and more!
• Storage - store complex objects like pictures and videos to the cloud.