Question: Using LLMRunner Outside of SwiftUI Views in VIPER Architecture

[AdnanZahid]

What Stanford Spezi module is your challenge related to?

SpeziLLM

Description

Thank you for creating and maintaining the SpeziLLM repository, it’s been a valuable addition to the iOS app I’m developing. I’m currently in the process of integrating LLMRunner into my app, which follows the VIPER architecture.

I had a quick question regarding its usage:
Is it possible to use LLMRunner without relying on the @Environment property wrapper? I would prefer to encapsulate the LLM logic within the Interactor (or repository) layer, rather than within the View layer, in accordance with VIPER principles.

At the moment, it appears that the LLM logic is tightly coupled with SwiftUI-specific mechanisms.

Any guidance or suggestions on how to decouple this logic from the view layer would be greatly appreciated!

Reproduction

Not applicable, this is not a bug report.

Expected behavior

The goal is to initialize LLMRunner and LLMLocalSession directly, without relying on SwiftUI constructs such as @Environment or AppDelegate configuration.

This would allow the LLM functionality to be cleanly integrated into a repository or Interactor class.

Additional context

N/A

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this projects's Code of Conduct and Contributing Guidelines

[PSchmiedmayer]

@philippzagar Might be the best person to answer this question.

[philippzagar]

Hey @AdnanZahid,

Thank you for reaching out and for exploring SpeziLLM! We’re excited to hear you’re considering it for your application 🚀

Unfortunately, I am not deeply familiar with the VIPER architecture and have not used it personally in any projects.

In contrast, the broader Stanford Spezi ecosystem (including SpeziLLM) is built heavily around SwiftUI-style dependency injection, primarily leveraging the SwiftUI Environment. Building on this, Spezi introduces abstractions such as Modules (documentation here), which can declare interdependencies using the @Dependency property wrapper (reference). These modules integrate seamlessly with SwiftUI Views, as shown in the Interactions with SwiftUI guide.

While I cannot comment directly on the VIPER data flow specifics, you would likely still need to find a way to pass the LLMRunner (or a Module that depends on the LLMRunner) into the relevant layers of your VIPER structure. This reflects the overarching design philosophy of Spezi: building upon familiar SwiftUI principles and extending them with structured dependency management. This architecture also ensures that, for example, only a single instance of the LLMRunner exists within the application scope, managed by SpeziLLM.

For a more concrete example of how SpeziLLM is used in a real-world application, feel free to explore LLMonFHIR, particularly the FHIRInterpretationModule, which showcases an application built with SpeziLLM and the broader Stanford Spezi framework.

Please let us know how you plan to move forward or if you need any additional guidance. We’re happy to help.

[AdnanZahid]

Thanks so much for your response. SpeziLLM is an impressive framework and I really appreciate the thoughtful explanation. That said, it seems it is not the right fit for my current needs. Still, I truly appreciate your time and insights!