Improve the Build Process of your Apps

First of all, let's understand what this tool is:

What is Fastlane?

It's an open-source tool that will help you improve the development process and the distribution of your android and ios applications. With this tool you can automate processes such as:

• Automatically generate screenshots for use in stores
• Distribute beta versions to testers
• Sign your own code
• Upload a new version to testflight

It is possible to use external plugins to implement new flows; these plugins are developed by the open-source community.

Read more in the documentation

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How to configure on android?

• access your project and enter the android folder

cd myApp/android

• Initialize fastlane

Fastlane init

Now! you have to do configurations:

• In the terminal you will be asked to enter the package name found in the path NameOfApp/android/app/build.gradle and in the namespace field.
• As we are working with android at the moment, we need to make some settings in google. We'll have to generate the json file with some settings.

Google Configuration

• Open the google console
• Activate the api of the project you are working on, if you don't have a project created, create it here.
• Open the google service accounts and select the project you are working on.

Create google services

• Fill in the details and click done
• Copy the email address provided by the service and save it as we will need it later

• Create the keys, click on the 3 dots under actions
• Manage keys

• Create new key -> JSON -> Create
• We will place this json inside our project, place this file inside the android/fastlane folder and define a name for it
• We need to give permission for our service to work

User permissions

• Open the google console and go to users and permissions
• Invite user -> enter the email address of the service
• Set permissions to admin

Configuring the AppFile

json_key_file("android/fastlane/keys.json") # Path to the json secret

# find this data inside android/build.gradle, we use this to identify the app we are working on
package_name("com.nameofapp")

Installing an automatic version change plugin

• access the path yourProject/android/fastlane
• run this command

gem 'fastlane-plugin-increment_version_code'

Configuring FastFile

• This file is where we'll have our fastlane action flow

fastlane_require 'dotenv'

default_platform(:android)

# esta linha faz a leitura do arquivo gradle.properties para
# pegar algumas informações de config
def getGradleProperty(property_name)
  gradle_properties_content = File.read('../gradle.properties')
  property_regex = /^#{property_name}=(.+)/
  match = gradle_properties_content.match(property_regex)
  match[1] if match
end

platform :android do
  desc "Deploy to test internal to Google Play"

  lane :deployBeta do
    pathKeyJson = "android/fastlane/keys.json"

    # aumentar versão do build
    previous_build_number = google_play_track_version_codes(
      package_name: "com.nameofapp",
      json_key: pathKeyJson,
      track: "internal",
    )[0]

    current_build_number = previous_build_number + 1

    increment_version_code(
      gradle_file_path: "./app/build.gradle",
      version_code: current_build_number
    )

    gradle(task: 'clean')
    gradle(
      task: 'bundleRelease',
      properties: {
        "storeFile" => "../app/release.keystore",
        "android.injected.signing.store.password" => getGradleProperty('MYAPP_UPLOAD_STORE_PASSWORD'),
        "android.injected.signing.key.alias" => getGradleProperty('MYAPP_UPLOAD_KEY_ALIAS'),
        "android.injected.signing.key.password" => getGradleProperty('MYAPP_UPLOAD_KEY_PASSWORD'),
      }
    )

    supply(
      json_key: pathKeyJson,
      package_name: "com.nameofapp",
      track: 'internal',
      skip_upload_metadata: true,
      skip_upload_images: true,
      skip_upload_screenshots: true,
      skip_upload_apk: true,
      skip_upload_aab: false
    )
  end
end

Create script package.json

"fastlane:android": "cd android/Fastlane && Fastlane deployBeta"

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How to configure on ios?

• access your project and enter the android folder

cd myApp/android

• Initialize fastlane

Fastlane init

Tools we will use:

• app_store_connect_api_key: Tool that allows authentication with App Store Connect, this improves security and simplifies the implementation process.
• build_app: Used to generate an ipa file of our application.
• upload_to_testflight: Upload the ipa file to testflight

Generate api key

1. Select user and access, select tab api keys

2. Generate api key

3. Choose a name

4. Select the type of access -> generate the key

5. Paste the key file into the path myApp/ios/fastlane

Configuring AppFile

# enter your app identifier
app_identifier("your app_identifier")

# enter your apple_id
apple_id("your apple_id")

Configuring FastFile

default_platform(:ios)

platform :ios do
  desc "Deploy App to Testflight"
  lane :upload_testflight_beta do
    build_app(
      workspace: "myApp.xcworkspace", 
      scheme: "myApp",
      silent: true,
      clean: true,
    )

    api_key = app_store_connect_api_key(
      key_id: "your key id",
      issuer_id: "your issuer id",
      key_filepath: "path to file auth key",
      duration: 1200,
      in_house: false
    )

    upload_to_testflight(
      api_key: api_key,
      skip_submission: true,
      ipa: "myApp.ipa",
      skip_waiting_for_build_processing: true,
    )
  end
end

Create script package.json

"fastlane:ios": "cd iod/Fastlane && Fastlane upload_testflight_beta"