Type-safe Mixpanel events in Swift

Mixpanel's Swift SDK exposes a generic track method: Mixpanel.mainInstance().track(event: String, properties: Properties?). Properties is effectively [String: MixpanelType], which means any dictionary of supported types compiles, including ones that have nothing to do with your tracking plan.

On iOS this matters more than on the web. A bad event name in JavaScript gets hot-patched and deployed in minutes. A bad event name in Swift sits in the App Store for days or weeks while the next release goes through review. Ordaze's Swift codegen turns every event in your tracking plan into a method with typed parameters, so the compiler refuses to build the app when a call drifts.

The Mixpanel SDK

This guide assumes you are installing the official Mixpanel SDK. The typed wrapper Ordaze generates sits on top of it and calls into it directly. You are not replacing your analytics provider, just adding a type-safe layer.

// Swift Package Manager
// Add via Xcode: File > Add Packages
// Mixpanel-swift

Setup in 5 steps

1. 1

   Add the Mixpanel Swift SDK via Swift Package Manager

   In Xcode: File > Add Packages > paste the Mixpanel URL. Add the product to your app target.

   // URL for Swift Package Manager:
   https://github.com/mixpanel/mixpanel-swift

2. 2

   Initialize Mixpanel on app launch

   In a SwiftUI app, call Mixpanel.initialize inside your @main App init. For UIKit, do it in application(_:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:).

   import Mixpanel
   import SwiftUI
   
   @main
   struct MyApp: App {
       init() {
           Mixpanel.initialize(
               token: "YOUR_PROJECT_TOKEN",
               trackAutomaticEvents: false
           )
       }
       var body: some Scene {
           WindowGroup { ContentView() }
       }
   }

3. 3

   Define events in Ordaze and generate the Swift file

   In the Ordaze dashboard, open your tracking plan and export the Swift codegen for Mixpanel. The output is a single .swift file containing an enum-like namespace with one method per event.

4. 4

   Drop the generated file into your Xcode project

   Copy Analytics.swift into your app target. Import wherever you need to track, typically inside a view model or SwiftUI View action handler.

   import SwiftUI
   
   struct SignUpView: View {
       var body: some View {
           Button("Sign up") {
               Analytics.track.signUpCompleted(plan: .pro)
           }
       }
   }

5. 5

   Run the Ordaze scanner on every pull request

   The scanner parses Swift source, finds every call into Mixpanel, and fails the build if any call does not match a method generated from the plan. This catches cases where a developer bypassed the Analytics namespace and called Mixpanel.mainInstance().track directly.

Before and after

Button("Sign up") {
    Mixpanel.mainInstance().track(
        event: "Sign Up Complete", // typo: missing 'd'
        properties: ["Plan": "pro"]  // 'Plan' vs 'plan', new property in Mixpanel
    )
}

Button("Sign up") {
    Analytics.track.signUpCompleted(plan: .pro)
    // .pro, .free, .enterprise are the only valid values
    // Missing 'plan' fails to compile
}

Swift + Mixpanel gotchas

Why Ordaze for this combo

Frequently asked questions

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