Overview#

Noctule is an IDE for Swift development, with support for Objective-C alongside it. It is provided as a plugin for JetBrains products and Android Studio.

Installation describes how to set up Noctule and Swift.

System Requirements#

OSmacOS, Linux, Windows

JetBrains IDEs 2025.3 – 2026.2   Android Studio Panda or later   Swift 6.2 or later

Noctule requires a JetBrains IDE, version 2025.3 or later. Alternatively, you can use Noctule with Android Studio Panda or later.

macOS, Linux and Windows are supported.

Swift 6.2 or later or later must be installed on your system for all of Noctule’s features to work. Earlier versions may work but are not officially supported.

Current Limitations#

Noctule is still under active development and not yet a complete Swift IDE. If you need a new feature, please request it in a GitHub issue or start a discussion there.

The following features are not yet supported but planned for the future:

  • Debugging
  • Expanded Xcode support
  • Improved SwiftLint integration
  • Better code navigation and analysis

Features#

Editor Features#

Syntax Highlighting
Noctule provides syntax highlighting for *.swift files. Noctule’s color scheme can be configured at Preferences → Editor → Color Scheme → Swift (Noctule).
File Templates
Noctule provides templates for commonly used Swift declarations, including empty files, classes, protocols and actors.
Code Completion
Noctule provides code completions in the editor.
Code Navigation
Common features like “Find Usages”, “Go To Declaration” and “Go To Symbol” are supported.
Code Formatter
Noctule comes with a native formatter for Swift files. The code style settings are available at Preferences → Editor → Code Style → Swift (Noctule). External formatters are supported through the Format on Save settings.
Quick Fixes
Fixes provided by SourceKit-LSP and SwiftLint are shown in the editor.
Structure View
The structure of Swift files is supported, including sticky lines in the editor.
Editor Inlays
Inlays display the inferred types of variables and parameters.
Code Folding
Code folding is supported for the most important Swift code structures.

Objective-C Support#

Paid feature Since Noctule 3.0

Objective-C and C sources are parsed and highlighted by Noctule, and the language features backed by SourceKit-LSP — code completion, navigation and find usages — work in them as well.

A native code formatter, code folding, spellchecking, language injection, live templates and copyright header support are available for Objective-C, too.

By default, Noctule handles *.m and *.h files. *.c files can be assigned to it if you would like to edit C sources with SourceKit-LSP.

Build and Execution#

Run Configurations
The current version supports configuring and executing run configurations for the swift build, swift run and swift test commands.

It’s planned to improve this functionality in the future.

Supported Swift Toolchains#

Swift toolchains installed in the following ways are detected automatically:

  • Swiftly
  • Xcode
  • Swift in $PATH

Please refer to the installation guide for further details.

Project Management#

Swift Package Manager projects are natively supported.

At Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → Noctule, the Swift IDE you can configure the Swift toolchain and the default settings of your project.

Settings of a particular Swift Package Manager project can be customized at Preferences → Build, Execution, Deployment → Noctule, the Swift IDE → Directory Settings.