Why does xcode open when debugging Flutter projects?

Question

I updated my phone to iOS 17 and I'm using Xcode 15. After the update, Xcode started to open automatically when I debug the flutter project. Before, we used to run Xcode ourselves if necessary, but now it runs continuously and the debug session is open on Xcode. When I close Xcode, the debug session is also closed. Unnecessary ram and resource consumption.

Why does Xcode open while debugging flutter projects now, is there any way to prevent this?

Answer 1

As explained here: If your app imports iOS platform-specific libraries, then Xcode is needed to debug that portion of your code. Xcode running in the foreground is expected behaviour until Apple (hopefully) adds a missing debugging feature for iOS 17.

Flutter used to silently build your project using Xcode and then launch a debugserver on the iOS device using ios-deploy. iOS 17 no longer supports ios-deploy however, and the replacement tooling in Xcode 15 is not able to start a debugserver as required by Flutter. Apple now only allows Xcode 15 running in the foreground to start a debugserver on iOS 17 and newer. (source: Flutter issue #133465)

Debugging your app in Flutter web on the other hand doesn’t require Xcode to run, and will quickly highlight any incompatible iOS libraries.