AIArticleDigest

📘 Overview

AIArticleDigest is a SwiftUI news reader portfolio app focused on practical app architecture:

• clean repository-based data flow
• SwiftData bookmarks
• mock/live runtime switching
• AI summary experience (mock and live-capable)
• stable UI automation with accessibility identifiers

Features

• Articles tab with:
  • search, pull-to-refresh, and recently viewed hint
  • navigation to article detail
  • stable row identifiers for UI testing
• Article detail screen with:
  • hero thumbnail (when available)
  • bookmark toggle and share actions
  • in-app Safari for original article links
  • AI summary modes (3-Line / Detailed) with loading, error, retry, and cache
  • summary copy/share actions and toast feedback
• Bookmarks tab with:
  • persisted bookmarks (SwiftData)
  • swipe-to-delete support
  • sort options (Newest / Oldest / Source A-Z)
  • navigation to article detail

Screenshots

Architecture

The app follows a lightweight layered architecture:

• App/*: composition root (AppEnvironment) and runtime configuration
• Core/*: cross-cutting modules (AI, networking, persistence, UI helpers)
• Features/*: UI + ViewModels per feature

Key design points:

• ArticleRepository and SummarizationService are protocol boundaries.
• AppEnvironment builds concrete dependencies and injects them.
• BookmarkStateStore (@MainActor, @Observable) provides immediate UI sync, while BookmarkRepository handles persistence.
• Runtime behavior is centralized in RuntimeConfig (AIArticleDigestApp.swift).

Runtime Modes

The app supports mock/live switching via launch environment values.

Mode	Articles	Summary	Required env vars
Mock (default)	MockArticleRepository	MockSummarizationService	None
Live articles only	RemoteArticleRepository (NewsAPI)	MockSummarizationService	USE_LIVE_API=1, NEWS_API_KEY
Live summary only	MockArticleRepository	LiveSummarizationService (OpenAI)	USE_LIVE_SUMMARIZATION=1, OPENAI_API_KEY
Fully live	RemoteArticleRepository (NewsAPI)	LiveSummarizationService (OpenAI)	USE_LIVE_API=1, NEWS_API_KEY, USE_LIVE_SUMMARIZATION=1, OPENAI_API_KEY

OPENAI_SUMMARY_MODEL is optional (default: gpt-4o-mini).

Debug helper

• FAIL_ONCE_SUMMARY=1
  Forces the first summary request to fail once (DEBUG only), useful for retry verification.

Learn More

• NewsAPI: Documentation
• OpenAI API: API Platform Docs

Environment Variables

Runtime configuration is read from Scheme Environment Variables.

• Scheme environment variables are local developer settings and are not committed to this repository, so each developer must configure them manually.
  1. In Xcode, open Edit Scheme → Run → Arguments → Environment Variables.
  2. Add entries as needed (for example: Name USE_LIVE_API, Value 1).
  3. Ensure each variable is enabled (checked).

Name	Purpose	Example
USE_LIVE_API	Enable live NewsAPI article fetching	1
NEWS_API_KEY	NewsAPI key used by RemoteArticleRepository	your_newsapi_key
USE_LIVE_SUMMARIZATION	Enable live OpenAI-based summary generation	1
OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI API key used by LiveSummarizationService	your_openai_api_key
OPENAI_SUMMARY_MODEL	Optional override for summary model	gpt-4o-mini
FAIL_ONCE_SUMMARY	DEBUG helper: fail the first summary request once	1

For UI tests, the launcher also uses:

Name	Type	Purpose
UITEST_IN_MEMORY_STORE	Launch argument	Runs SwiftData with an in-memory store

Secrets

Do not commit real keys.

• Keep local secrets outside Git tracking (for example via Scheme Environment Variables).
• Config/Secrets.xcconfig is ignored in .gitignore.
• For public repos, never include real API keys in source/history.

Optional: Use .xcconfig with Scheme Environment Variables

If you prefer local key management with .xcconfig, you can wire it through your run scheme.

1. Create a local Secrets.xcconfig (not committed), for example:

NEWS_API_KEY=your_newsapi_key
OPENAI_API_KEY=your_openai_api_key

2. In Xcode, open Edit Scheme → Run → Arguments → Environment Variables.
3. Add entries like:
   • Name: NEWS_API_KEY, Value: $(NEWS_API_KEY)
   • Name: OPENAI_API_KEY, Value: $(OPENAI_API_KEY)
4. Ensure each variable is enabled (checked).

Testing

Unit tests (AIArticleDigestTests)

Covered areas include:

• RemoteArticleRepository DTO mapping and filtering behavior
• ArticleDetailViewModel summary state transitions
• BookmarksViewModel sort behavior
• RecentArticleStore persistence behavior
• BookmarkStateStore state transitions
• MockSummarizationService behavior

UI tests (AIArticleDigestUITests)

Main flow and empty bookmarks flow are covered.
UI tests use accessibilityIdentifier-based selectors to reduce brittle text matching.

The UI test launcher uses:

• UITEST_IN_MEMORY_STORE launch argument
  to run with an in-memory SwiftData store.

Known Limitations

• Live article data quality depends on the upstream NewsAPI response. Some items may not include image URLs or complete metadata.
• Live summary requires a valid OpenAI API key and network connectivity.
• API rate limits or provider errors can temporarily affect live article fetching or summary generation.
• Mock mode is intended for development and demonstration; it does not represent real-time news updates.

Requirements

• Xcode 26.x
• iOS Simulator 26.x
• Swift 6 (as configured by project settings)

License

MIT. See LICENSE.