Hi! I wanted to share a small project I've been working on, strudel - it's a CLI tool to make it easy for anyone to build macOS apps directly from the terminal, without opening Xcode.
Under the hood it builds Swift Package Manager-based apps using the standard Apple toolchain (e.g. swift, codesign, notarytool) and bundles things up nicely into an app bundle and optionally a DMG.
All strudel commands also have a --dry-run mode so you can see exactly which underlying commands will be executed.
Xcode still needs to be installed for the CLI toolchain it provides, but you can use your own IDE and terminal environment to develop your app. You don't need an Apple Developer account to get started, though you do need it to distribute your app to others or use some restricted entitlements.
There's some preliminary support for iOS apps as well.
I've been having a lot of fun with this, making all kinds of small utility apps, safari extensions, and menu bar apps for myself. Happy to answer any questions!