cometchat-ios-placement

• SKILL.mdcore · 7,420 bytes

## Companion skills (read first)
- `cometchat-ios-core` owns the default surface (list → pushed chat screen) and the five layout rules. This skill ADDS composition beyond that one screen. The five rules still apply to EVERY screen you add.

## Use this skill when
"tab-based chat", "let people browse users and groups", "open group details", "add a thread screen", "make it work on iPad".

## The shape of an iOS CometChat app
`UITabBarController` (yours) → per tab a `UINavigationController` (yours) → a kit list → **push your own chat screen**. The kit supplies screens; **you own every container and every transition**. There is no composite component and no built-in tab shell.

## Recipes
**The kit's lists draw their OWN navigation bar — the host's `navigationItem` is unused.** Setting `navigationItem.rightBarButtonItems` (a "New Group" button is the first thing anyone adds) silently renders NOTHING: measured with the button installed and both bars inspected, the control never appears, and setting `hideNavigationBar = true` removes the visible bar, proving it is the kit's. Put custom controls in the kit's own affordances — `CometChatMessageHeader.set(options:)` for the header overflow menu, or assign the list components' `menus` property (`[UIBarButtonItem]?`) — there is **no** `set(menus:)` method; `menus` is a settable property, not a setter. Otherwise hide the kit bar and use your own — do not attach them to a `navigationItem` nobody draws.

**Tabs.** One `UINavigationController` per tab, each rooted at `CometChatConversations` / `CometChatUsers` / `CometChatGroups` / `CometChatCallLogs`. Every list's selection callback pushes your chat screen — wire all of them, or a tab dead-ends.