Signing iOS apps

All iOS applications have to be digitally signed before they can be installed on real devices or made available to the public.

Signing iOS applications requires Apple Developer Program membership. You can upload your signing certificate and distribution profile to Codemagic to manage code signing yourself or use the automatic code signing option where Codemagic takes care of code signing and signing files management on your behalf. Read more about the two options below.

Automatic code signing

In order to use automatic code signing and have Codemagic manage signing certificates and provisioning profiles on your behalf, you need to configure API access to App Store Connect.

Creating the App Store Connect API key

It is recommended to create a dedicated App Store Connect API key for Codemagic in App Store Connect. To do so:

1. Log in to App Store Connect and navigate to Users and Access > Keys.
2. Click on the + sign to generate a new API key.
3. Enter the name for the key and select an access level. We recommend choosing either Developer or App Manager, read more about Apple Developer Program role permissions here.
4. Click Generate.
5. As soon as the key is generated, you can see it added in the list of active keys. Click Download API Key to save the private key for later. Note that the key can only be downloaded once.

Saving the API key to environment variables

Save the API key and the related information as environment variables. Make sure to encrypt the values of the variables before adding them to the configuration file.

environment:
  vars:
    APP_STORE_CONNECT_ISSUER_ID: Encrypted(...)
    APP_STORE_CONNECT_KEY_IDENTIFIER: Encrypted(...)
    APP_STORE_CONNECT_PRIVATE_KEY: Encrypted(...)
    CERTIFICATE_PRIVATE_KEY: Encrypted(...)

• APP_STORE_CONNECT_KEY_IDENTIFIER

  In App Store Connect > Users and Access > Keys, this is the Key ID of the key.

• APP_STORE_CONNECT_ISSUER_ID

  In App Store Connect > Users and Access > Keys, this is the Issuer ID displayed above the table of active keys.

• APP_STORE_CONNECT_PRIVATE_KEY

  This is the private API key downloaded from App Store Connect. Note that when encrypting files via UI, they will be base64 encoded and would have to be decoded during the build. Alternativey, you can encrypt the contents of the file and save the encrypted value to the environment variable.

• CERTIFICATE_PRIVATE_KEY

  A RSA 2048 bit private key to be included in the signing certificate that Codemagic creates. You can use an existing key or create a new 2048 bit RSA key by running the following command in your terminal:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 2048 -m PEM -f ~/Desktop/codemagic_private_key -q -N ""

Specifying code signing configuration

To code sign the app, add the following commands in the scripts section of the configuration file, after all the dependencies are installed, right before the build commands.

scripts:
  ... your dependencies installation
  - name: Set up keychain to be used for codesigning using Codemagic CLI 'keychain' command
    script: keychain initialize
  - name: Fetch signing files
    script: |
      app-store-connect fetch-signing-files "io.codemagic.app" \  # Fetch signing files for specified bundle ID (use "$(xcode-project detect-bundle-id)" if not specified)
        --type IOS_APP_DEVELOPMENT \  # Specify provisioning profile type*
        --create  # Allow creating resources if existing are not found.      
  - name: Set up signing certificate
    script: keychain add-certificates
  - name: Set up code signing settings on Xcode project
    script: xcode-project use-profiles
  ... your build commands

Based on the specified bundle ID and provisioning profile type, Codemagic will fetch or create the relevant provisioning profile and certificate to code sign the build.

Manual code signing

In order to use manual code signing, encrypt your signing certificate, the certificate password (if the certificate is password-protected) and the provisioning profile, and set the encrypted values to the following environment variables. Note that when encrypting files via UI, they will be base64 encoded and would have to be decoded during the build.

environment:
  FCI_CERTIFICATE: Encrypted(...)
  FCI_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD: Encrypted(...)
  FCI_PROVISIONING_PROFILE: Encrypted(...)

Then add the code signing configuration and the commands to code sign the build in the scripts section, after all the dependencies are installed, right before the build commands.

scripts:
  ... your dependencies installation
  - name: Set up keychain to be used for codesigning using Codemagic CLI 'keychain' command
    script: keychain initialize
  - name: Set up Provisioning profiles from environment variables
    script: |
      PROFILES_HOME="$HOME/Library/MobileDevice/Provisioning Profiles"
      mkdir -p "$PROFILES_HOME"
      PROFILE_PATH="$(mktemp "$PROFILES_HOME"/$(uuidgen).mobileprovision)"
      echo ${FCI_PROVISIONING_PROFILE} | base64 --decode > $PROFILE_PATH
      echo "Saved provisioning profile $PROFILE_PATH"      
  - name: Set up signing certificate
    script: |
      echo $FCI_CERTIFICATE | base64 --decode > /tmp/certificate.p12
      # when using a password-protected certificate
      keychain add-certificates --certificate /tmp/certificate.p12 --certificate-password $FCI_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD
      # when using a certificate that is not password-protected
      keychain add-certificates --certificate /tmp/certificate.p12      
  - name: Set up code signing settings on Xcode project
    script: xcode-project use-profiles
  ... your build commands