Profiling intake and collection checklist

Intent

Use this checklist when code review alone cannot explain the SwiftUI performance issue and you need runtime evidence from the user.

Ask for first

• Exact symptom: CPU spike, dropped frames, memory growth, hangs, or excessive view updates.
• Exact interaction: scrolling, typing, initial load, navigation push/pop, animation, sheet presentation, or background refresh.
• Target device and OS version.
• Whether the issue was reproduced on a real device or only in Simulator.
• Build configuration: Debug or Release.
• Whether the user already has a baseline or before/after comparison.

Default profiling request

Ask the user to:

• Run the app in a Release build when possible.
• Use the SwiftUI Instruments template.
• Reproduce the exact problematic interaction only long enough to capture the issue.
• Capture the SwiftUI timeline and Time Profiler together.
• Export the trace or provide screenshots of the key SwiftUI lanes and the Time Profiler call tree.

Ask for these artifacts

• Trace export or screenshots of the relevant SwiftUI lanes
• Time Profiler call tree screenshot or export
• Device/OS/build configuration
• A short note describing what action was happening at the time of the capture
• If memory is involved, the memory graph or Allocations data if available

When to ask for more

• Ask for a second capture if the first run mixes multiple interactions.
• Ask for a before/after pair if the user has already tried a fix.
• Ask for a device capture if the issue only appears in Simulator or if scrolling smoothness matters.

Common traps

• Debug builds can distort SwiftUI timing and allocation behavior.
• Simulator traces can miss device-only rendering or memory issues.
• Mixed interactions in one capture make attribution harder.
• Screenshots without the reproduction note are much harder to interpret.