# Editing {#editing}

Unlike traditional Xcode projects or Swift Packages,
where changes are done through Xcode's UI,
Tuist-managed projects are defined in Swift code contained in **manifest files**.
If you're familiar with Swift Packages and the `Package.swift` file,
the approach is very similar.

You could edit these files using any text editor,
but we recommend to use Tuist-provided workflow for that,
`tuist edit`.
The workflow creates an Xcode project that contains all manifest files and allows you to edit and compile them.
Thanks to using Xcode,
you get all the benefits of **code completion, syntax highlighting, and error checking**.

## Edit the project {#edit-the-project}

To edit your project, you can run the following command in a Tuist project directory or a sub-directory:

```bash
tuist edit
```

The command creates an Xcode project in a global directory and opens it in Xcode.
The project includes a `Manifests` directory that you can build to ensure all your manifests are valid.

> [!NOTE]
> **Glob-resolved Manifests**
>
> `tuist edit` resolves the manifests to be included by using the glob `**/{Manifest}.swift` from the project's root directory (the one containing the `Tuist.swift` file). Make sure there's a valid `Tuist.swift` at the root of the project.


### Ignoring manifest files {#ignoring-manifest-files}

If your project contains Swift files with the same name as manifest files (e.g., `Project.swift`) in subdirectories that are not actual Tuist manifests, you can create a `.tuistignore` file at the root of your project to exclude them from the editing project.

The `.tuistignore` file uses glob patterns to specify which files should be ignored:

```gitignore
# Ignore all Project.swift files in the Sources directory
Sources/**/Project.swift

# Ignore specific subdirectories
Tests/Fixtures/**/Workspace.swift
```

This is particularly useful when you have test fixtures or example code that happens to use the same naming convention as Tuist manifest files.

## Edit and generate workflow {#edit-and-generate-workflow}

As you might have noticed, the editing can't be done from the generated Xcode project.
That's by design to prevent the generated project from having a dependency on Tuist,
ensuring you can move from Tuist in the future with little effort.

When iterating on a project, we recommend running `tuist edit` from a terminal session to get an Xcode project to edit the project, and use another terminal session to run `tuist generate`.