Add plugin support back to Xcode 14+!

XcodePluginLoader is a lightweight, drop-in replacement for Xcode's built-in plugin system, which was removed in Xcode 14.0b3.

It allows for loading the same plugin bundles that worked in older versions of Xcode.

XcodePluginLoader needs to be injected into Xcode (more on that below). Once it's loaded, it aims to emulate the behavior of Xcode's original plugin loading system — searching for plugin bundles, performing compatibility checks, and loading / initializing plugins.

A much deeper dive is available on bryce.co.

1. Re-Sign Xcode (the same process you already had to in order to use plugins from Xcode 8 - Xcode 13)

(Note: this limits some functionality within Xcode. Consider keeping a signed copy of Xcode around as well. You can alternatively disable SIP at the expense of security)

2. Build or download the latest release of XcodePluginLoader
3. Copy XcodePluginLoader.dylib into Xcode.app/Contents
4. To run once, use DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES=@executable_path/../XcodePluginLoader.dylib /path/to/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode
5. For a more permanant setup, use optool to modify your Xcode binary to inject the plugin loader every time: optool install -p "@executable_path/../XcodePluginLoader.dylib" -t /path/to/Xcode.app/Contents/MacOS/Xcode

Just like Xcode's original plugin system, this loader checks plugin bundles for compatibility before loading them. Plugins will have to be tested on newer Xcode versions and then updated to indicate that they're compatible.

For Xcode 14.0 - 15.2, plugins can add DVTPlugInCompatibilityUUIDs to their Info.plist files to specify which versions of Xcode they're compatible with.

For Xcode 15.3+, plugins should instead specify CompatibleProductBuildVersions in their Info.plist file, based on Xcode's build version (like 15E204a).

These two compatibility values can exist side-by-side:

<key>CompatibleProductBuildVersions</key>
<array>
  <string>15E204a</string>  <!-- 15.3 -->
  <string>15E5178i</string> <!-- 15.3b1 -->
</array>
<key>DVTPlugInCompatibilityUUIDs</key>
<array>
  <string>EFD92DF8-D0A2-4C92-B6E3-9B3CD7E8DC19</string> <!-- 13.4 -->
  <string>7A3A18B7-4C08-46F0-A96A-AB686D315DF0</string> <!-- 13.2 -->
  <string>8BAA96B4-5225-471B-B124-D32A349B8106</string> <!-- 13.0 -->
</array>

When properly loaded into Xcode, XcodePluginLoader will log information about what it's doing; either use Console.app or launch Xcode via Terminal to see its output.