Connecting your Apple Developer Account to Bitrise

Connect your Apple Developer Portal account to Bitrise by authenticating your Apple credentials on Bitrise, and allow your apps to use those credentials during the builds.

You can go to your account settings right now to set it up: Apple Developer Connection.

Reasons to connect your account ⚓

Connect your Apple Developer account to Bitrise if:

You want to use one of our iOS Auto Provision Step to manage provisioning profiles for an iOS application. The iOS Auto Provision with Apple ID Step requires you to connect your Apple Developer account to Bitrise, while the iOS Auto Provision with App Store Connect API Step does not need any account connection or 2FA.
You want to upload your app to the App Store, using either our fastlane or Deploy to iTunes Connect Steps.
You want to upload metadata, screenshots, or other artifacts using our fastlane Step.

Which iOS Auto Provision Step to use ⚓

Bitrise has two iOS Auto Provision Steps available in the Step Library:

The iOS Auto Provision with App Store Connect API Step uses the official App Store Connect API (JSON Web Token) solution which means that you don’t have to connect your Apple Developer account to Bitrise and 2FA with Apple any more. We keep a close eye on any new App Store Connect API features and update our Step accordingly.
The iOS Auto Provision with Apple ID Step is our deprecated Step which uses session-based authentication, just like the fastlane and the Deploy to iTunes Connect Steps. The session-based authentication allows Bitrise to reuse your authentication sessions for 30 days so you do not have to manually go through 2FA on every single occasion. After 30 days, however, the authentication expires and you’ll have to log in with your Apple ID and password. Please note that we do not update the iOS Auto Provision with Apple ID Step any more.

Connecting your account ⚓

To successfully connect your Apple Developer account, and use your Apple Developer credentials in your Bitrise builds, you need to do TWO things:

Authenticate your Apple Developer account by providing your Apple credentials on your Account settings page either using the App Store Connect API or the old session-based method.
Authorize apps to use the data from your Apple Developer account.

Authorizing the apps

It is NOT enough to simply connect your Apple Developer Account to Bitrise. Apps will not be able to automatically use your credentials: you need to authorize each app to do so. For more information, check out Enabling Apple Developer Portal integration.

Authenticating your Apple Developer account with App Store Connect API ⚓

Our iOS Auto Provision with App Store Connect API Step uses the official App Store Connect API so you can use automatic code signing with Bitrise and don’t have to worry about providing Apple credentials.

You can use the Apple ID with fastlane, Deploy to itTunes Connect, and with our deprecated iOS Auto Provision with Apple ID Step.

Generate a new API key on App Store Connect under Users and Access in App Store Connect.
Log into bitrise.io.
Click on your profile in the upper-right corner of your Dashboard and select Account settings from the dropdown menu.
On the menu bar on the left, select Apple Developer Account.
Click Add an Account.
To connect your API key, fill out all required fields: provide a work or personal Name of the team, an Issuer ID, a Key ID and an Upload a Private key (.p8). If one input is missing, the Connect and Upload a Private Key (.p8) buttons won’t be available.
Continue with Enabling Developer Portal integration.

Authenticating your Apple Developer account with Apple ID ⚓

Please note that this method is now deprecated since the official Apple Store Connect API (JSON Web Token) has been released. Our fastlane, Deploy to iTunes Connect and the related iOS Auto Provision with Apple ID Steps still use this method tough.

Log in to bitrise.io.
Click on your profile in the upper-right corner of your Dashboard and select Account settings from the dropdown menu.
On the menu bar on the left, select Apple Developer Account.
Provide your credentials in the popup window and click Store credentials.
If two-factor authentication is enabled on your Apple Developer account, you will be prompted to provide your verification code. In this case, your authentication will expire in 30 days and you will have to authenticate again!

Enabling Apple Developer Portal integration ⚓

Authorize your app to receive Apple Developer Portal data from Bitrise once your Apple Developer Account is connected to your bitrise.io account.

As such, any team member’s connected account can be used with an app. The app does NOT necessarily have to use the owner’s connected Apple Developer account.

To authorize the app:

Open your project’s page on bitrise.io.
Select the Team tab.
Scroll down to the Connected Apple Developer Portal Account section.
Select an account by the App Store Connect API or Session based authentication (deprecated) drop downs. You can select both authentication methods if that’s what your Workflow requires. Make sure you test your Session based authentication’s connection. Please note that only app owner’s and admin’s connected Apple Developer Accounts will appear in the lists.

If everything goes well, you should be able to use the connected accounts’ Apple Developer credentials in the app’s builds.