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Release Management requirements

Abstract

Bitrise Release Management allows you to streamline the release process of your app, and provides a high-level overview of the process. This provides transparency and enables all team members to understand the progress of upcoming releases, helping them to coordinate their work more efficiently.

Release Management allows you to deploy your apps to either Google Play or the App Store. To use it, there are some requirements to keep in mind.

Requirements for iOS apps

To deploy iOS apps to the App Store using Release Management, you need:

  • A working Apple service connection.

  • An app that is already registered on App Store Connect.

  • A Bitrise Workflow that generates a signed .ipa file.

Apple service connection

Release Management requires a connected API key Apple Service connection for iOS projects. Make sure you have an active API key Service Connection and it’s assigned to the iOS Project. For more information, check out Connecting to an Apple service with API key.

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Registered iOS app on App Store Connect

You can release your iOS app using Release Management to App Store connect. You will have to specify the app when you create a new release. Learn more about App Store Connect apps.

White label app support

Each new release can be connected to another App Store Connect app, so you can release multiple App Store apps from one Bitrise Project if you want.

A Bitrise Workflow that can generate an .ipa or an .xcarchive file from your app

Release Management requires a Workflow capable of generating an .ipa or an .xcarchive file. If both files are available Release Management will use the .ipa file during the release candidate stage.

The easiest way to do it is by adding the Xcode Archive & Export for iOS Step and the Deploy to Bitrise.io - Apps, Logs, Artifacts Step to your Workflow. For more information, check out Selecting a release candidate for the release candidate stage.

Requirements for Android apps

To deploy Android apps to Google Play using Release Management, you need:

  • A working Google service account connection.

  • An app that is already registered on Google Play.

  • A Bitrise Workflow generating a signed .aab file.

Google service account connection

Before deploying to Google Play, you need to set up a Google service account and configure Google API access. Without that, Bitrise won't be able to access Google Play during the release process. For more information, check out: Connecting a Google Play Console service account to Bitrise.

Registered app on Google Play

During the release process, you will have to specify the app you wish to release. This is only possible if it already exists on Google Play. To set up a new app on Google Play, check out Google's official documentation: Create and set up your app.

A Bitrise Workflow that can generate an .aab file

Release Management requires a Workflow capable of generating a signed .aab file: Generating an Android App Bundle file.

Deploy to Bitrise.io Step version requirement

The Workflow must include the Deploy to Bitrise.io Step and it must be at least version 2.3.0 or higher: Step versioning.

In this section:

An app on Bitrise represents a Git repository that stores source code and has been connected to Bitrise to be able to run builds on it. As such, a Bitrise app isn't necessarily an actual application: it's just the code on which you run builds with Bitrise.

A Workflow is a collection of Steps, Environment Variables, and other configurations. When Bitrise starts a build, it runs one or more Workflows according to the configuration defined in the bitrise.yml file.