How do I add custom items to the iPadOS hardware keyboard assistant bar using public APIs?

The solution isn’t to use the SwiftUI .toolbar { ToolbarItem(placement: .keyboard) } modifier—which is designed for attaching items to the software keyboard—but rather to customize the keyboard assistant bar via the UITextInputAssistantItem API. On iPad, when you’re using a hardware keyboard, you need to work with the responder’s inputAssistantItem (typically from a UITextView or similar), which gives you access to the leadingBarButtonGroups and trailingBarButtonGroups properties that appear above the keyboard’s typing suggestions.

For example, you can create custom UIBarButtonItem groups and assign them like this:

SWIFTCopied
// Assuming textView is your UITextView (or any UIResponder that provides an input assistant)
let assistant = textView.inputAssistantItem

// Create your bar button items.
let itemOne = UIBarButtonItem(
    title: "One",
    style: .plain,
    target: self,
    action: #selector(handleItemOne(_:))
)
let itemTwo = UIBarButtonItem(
    title: "Two",
    style: .plain,
    target: self,
    action: #selector(handleItemTwo(_:))
)
let itemThree = UIBarButtonItem(
    title: "Three",
    style: .plain,
    target: self,
    action: #selector(handleItemThree(_:))
)

// Optionally, create a representative item if you want UIKit to collapse the group when space is limited.
let representativeItem = UIBarButtonItem(
    title: "More",
    style: .plain,
    target: nil,
    action: nil
)

// Group the items.
let group = UIBarButtonItemGroup(
    barButtonItems: [itemOne, itemTwo, itemThree],
    representativeItem: representativeItem
)

// Assign the group to display before the typing suggestions.
assistant.leadingBarButtonGroups = [group]

By doing this, you directly configure the keyboard assistant bar that appears with a hardware keyboard on iPad, similar to how apps like iA Writer implement their custom functions and menus.

Remember that this API is only effective on iPad (and Mac Catalyst), so it won’t modify the input accessory view on iPhone. This approach is documented in the UITextInputAssistantItem section of the Apple Developer Documentation.