This guide will help you set up Continuous Delivery for your iOS project.

It will help you set up all needed build tools. I tested everything with a fresh Yosemite installation.

Installation • Setting up • Example Project • Help

If you don't want to use sudo, you can follow the CocoaPods Guide of a sudo-less installation.

See how Wikipedia, Product Hunt and MindNode use fastlane to automate their iOS submission process.

Requirements:

• Mac OS 10.9 or newer
• Ruby 2.0 or newer (ruby -v)
• Xcode

Additionally, to an Xcode installation, you also need the Xcode command line tools set up

xcode-select --install

If you have not used the command line tools before (which is likely if you just installed it), you'll need to accept the terms of service.

sudo xcodebuild -license accept

Install the gem and all its dependencies (this might take a few minutes).

sudo gem install fastlane --verbose

Before changing anything, I recommend committing everything in git (in case something goes wrong).

When running the setup commands, please read the instructions shown in the terminal. There is usually a reason they are there.

fastlane will create all necessary files and folders for you with the following command. It will use values detected from the project in the working directory.

fastlane init

This will prompt you for your Apple ID in order run produce which will create your app on iTunes Connect and the Apple Developer Center, and enable sigh and deliver.

That's it, you should have received a success message.

What did this setup do?

• Created a fastlane folder
• Moved existing deliver and snapshot configuration into the fastlane folder (if they existed).
• Created fastlane/Appfile, which stores your Apple ID and Bundle Identifier.
• Created fastlane/Fastfile, which stores your deployment pipelines.

The setup automatically detects, which tools you're using (e.g. deliver, CocoaPods).

Before running fastlane, make sure, all tools are correctly set up.

For example, try running the following (depending on what you plan on using):

• deliver
• snapshot
• sigh
• frameit

All those tools have detailed instructions on how to set them up. It's easier to set them up now, than later.

First, think about what different builds you'll need. Some ideas:

• New App Store releases
• Beta Builds for TestFlight or HockeyApp
• Only testing (unit and integration tests)
• In House distribution

Open the fastlane/Fastfile in your preferred text editor and change the syntax highlighting to Ruby.

Depending on your existing setup, it looks similar to this (I removed some lines):

before_all do
  # increment_build_number
  cocoapods
end

lane :test do
  snapshot
end

lane :beta do
  sigh
  gym
  pilot
  # sh "your_script.sh"
end

lane :deploy do
  snapshot
  sigh
  gym
  deliver(force: true)
  # frameit
end

lane :inhouse do
  # insert your code here
end

after_all do |lane|
  # This block is called, only if the executed lane was successful
end

error do |lane, exception|
  # Something bad happened
end

You can already try running it, put a line (say "It works") to the :inhouse lane and run

fastlane inhouse

You should hear your computer speaking to you, which is great!

A list of available actions can be found in the Actions documentation.

Automating the deployment process is a great next step. You should use increment_build_number when you want to upload builds to iTunes Connect (Activate incrementing build numbers).

sh "./script.sh"

This will execute your existing build script. Everything inside the " will be executed in the shell.

If you want a fancy command (like snapshot has), you can build your own extension very easily using fastlane new_action.

See how Wikipedia, Product Hunt and MindNode use fastlane to automate their iOS submission process.

For all those projects you get all required configuration files, which help you get a sense of how you can use fastlane.

Also, check out the Actions documentation to see a list of available integrations and options.

If something is unclear or you need help, open an issue.