🍎 Build a Notes App with SwiftUI and Core Data

1 Define the Note entity in the data model

Open your .xcdatamodeld file (or create one), add an entity named Note, and give it two attributes: title (String) and body (String), plus createdAt (Date). Xcode generates a matching NSManagedObject subclass automatically.

// Entity: Note
// Attributes: title (String), body (String), createdAt (Date)
// Codegen: Class Definition (default) — Xcode generates the Note class for you

2 Set up the persistence controller

If your project wasn't created with "Use Core Data" checked, add this small controller that owns the NSPersistentContainer.

// Persistence.swift
import CoreData

struct PersistenceController {
    static let shared = PersistenceController()

    let container: NSPersistentContainer

    init() {
        container = NSPersistentContainer(name: "NotesModel") // matches .xcdatamodeld file name
        container.loadPersistentStores { _, error in
            if let error { fatalError("Core Data failed to load: \(error)") }
        }
    }
}

Inject the context into the SwiftUI environment in your App struct:

// NotesApp.swift
@main
struct NotesApp: App {
    let persistence = PersistenceController.shared

    var body: some Scene {
        WindowGroup {
            NotesListView()
                .environment(\.managedObjectContext, persistence.container.viewContext)
        }
    }
}

3 Fetch and display notes with @FetchRequest

@FetchRequest binds a live Core Data query directly to a SwiftUI view — no manual refresh needed, the list updates automatically whenever the store changes.

// NotesListView.swift
import SwiftUI
import CoreData

struct NotesListView: View {
    @Environment(\.managedObjectContext) private var context

    @FetchRequest(
        sortDescriptors: [NSSortDescriptor(keyPath: \Note.createdAt, ascending: false)]
    ) private var notes: FetchedResults<Note>

    @State private var showingAddNote = false

    var body: some View {
        NavigationStack {
            Group {
                if notes.isEmpty {
                    ContentUnavailableView("No notes yet", systemImage: "note.text", description: Text("Tap + to add one"))
                } else {
                    List {
                        ForEach(notes) { note in
                            VStack(alignment: .leading) {
                                Text(note.title ?? "").font(.headline)
                                Text(note.body ?? "").font(.subheadline).foregroundColor(.secondary)
                            }
                        }
                        .onDelete(perform: deleteNotes)
                    }
                }
            }
            .navigationTitle("My Notes")
            .toolbar {
                ToolbarItem(placement: .primaryAction) {
                    Button(action: { showingAddNote = true }) {
                        Image(systemName: "plus")
                    }
                }
            }
            .sheet(isPresented: $showingAddNote) {
                AddNoteView()
            }
        }
    }

    private func deleteNotes(at offsets: IndexSet) {
        offsets.map { notes[$0] }.forEach(context.delete)
        try? context.save()
    }
}

4 Build the "Add Note" sheet

// AddNoteView.swift
struct AddNoteView: View {
    @Environment(\.managedObjectContext) private var context
    @Environment(\.dismiss) private var dismiss

    @State private var title = ""
    @State private var body = ""

    var body: some View {
        NavigationStack {
            Form {
                TextField("Title", text: $title)
                TextField("Body", text: $body)
            }
            .navigationTitle("New Note")
            .toolbar {
                ToolbarItem(placement: .cancellationAction) {
                    Button("Cancel") { dismiss() }
                }
                ToolbarItem(placement: .confirmationAction) {
                    Button("Save") { save() }.disabled(title.isEmpty)
                }
            }
        }
    }

    private func save() {
        let note = Note(context: context)
        note.title = title
        note.body = body
        note.createdAt = Date()
        try? context.save()
        dismiss()
    }
}

Because @FetchRequest observes the context, saving here immediately updates the list back on NotesListView — there's no callback or notification to wire up manually.

5 Run it

Build and run. Add a couple of notes, delete one with swipe-to-delete, then stop and relaunch the app — your remaining notes should still be there, proving Core Data persisted them to disk.