Tvos Design Guidelines

This gives Claude the Apple HIG for tvOS when you're building living room apps. It's all about focus-based navigation since there's no pointer or touch screen, just the Siri Remote. You get specific rules on focus states, parallax effects, minimum touch targets (250x150pt for cards), and text sizes for 10-foot viewing (29pt minimum body text). The skill knows when focus movement breaks user expectations, when you're misusing the Menu button, and why you should never make the on-screen keyboard the only text input option. Useful if you're building media apps or anything for Apple TV and need to avoid the common traps of treating it like an iPad across the room.

skills.sh installs: 1.2K
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last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add ehmo/platform-design-skills --skill tvos-design-guidelines --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

tvOS Design Guidelines

Apple TV is a living room device driven entirely by focus-based navigation and the Siri Remote. There is no pointer, no touch screen, and no mouse. Every design decision must account for the 10-foot viewing distance, the simplicity of the remote, and the lean-back nature of TV consumption.

1. Focus-Based Navigation (CRITICAL)

The focus system is the foundation of all tvOS interaction. There is no cursor -- users move focus between elements using the Siri Remote touch surface.

Rules

FOCUS-01: Every interactive element must have a clearly visible focus state. The focused item must be unmistakably distinguished from unfocused items. Use scaling (typically 1.05x-1.1x), elevation via shadow, brightness changes, or border highlights. Never rely on color alone.

FOCUS-02: Focus movement must be predictable and follow a logical spatial layout. When a user swipes right, focus must move to the element visually to the right. Avoid layouts where focus jumps unexpectedly across the screen. Grid and linear layouts are safest.

SKILL.md on GitHub