publish-mobile-app

A Claude Code skill that automates iOS App Store + Google Play Store publishing for Capacitor, Expo, or Flutter apps.

Shipping a mobile app to both stores is full of paper cuts: subtle filename rules, undocumented APIs, locale gotchas, rejection emails that quote guideline numbers nobody memorises. This skill bundles every paper cut learned shipping a real app to v1.0 — so the next one ships clean.

What it does

When you invoke /publish-mobile-app, Claude routes to one of these sub-commands:

Sub-command	What happens
status	Query both stores' APIs, report what's live vs missing
setup	Wire fastlane + gradle-play-publisher + App Store Connect API key + reviewer user (one-time, ~5 min interactive)
push	Sync listing copy + screenshots to both stores
ipa	Build signed iOS IPA → upload to TestFlight
aab	Build signed Android AAB → upload to Play internal track
release	Full lifecycle (bump + build + upload + listing push)
fix-rejection	Paste a rejection email; Claude maps to the recipe and applies the fix
checklist	Refresh a RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md at repo root

It also auto-triggers when you mention Play Store, App Store Connect, fastlane, TestFlight, or paste a store rejection email — even without the slash command.

Install

As a Claude Code plugin (recommended)

/plugin marketplace add logesh-kumar/publish-mobile-app
/plugin install publish-mobile-app@publish-mobile-app

As a raw skill

git clone https://github.com/logesh-kumar/publish-mobile-app.git /tmp/pma
cp -r /tmp/pma/plugins/publish-mobile-app/skills/publish-mobile-app ~/.claude/skills/
cp /tmp/pma/plugins/publish-mobile-app/commands/publish-mobile-app.md ~/.claude/commands/

What's in the box

publish-mobile-app/
├── SKILL.md           Entry point and sub-command router
├── REFERENCE.md       Framework specifics (Capacitor / Expo / Flutter), Fastfile templates, every gotcha learned the hard way
├── REJECTIONS.md      Recipes per Apple/Google rejection (Guideline 2.1, 2.3.8, 4.0, Data Safety mismatch, etc.)
├── MANUAL_FORMS.md    Walkthroughs for Age Rating, App Privacy, Data Safety questionnaires
└── scripts/
    ├── bootstrap-app-store-key.ts    Assembles ASC key JSON from .p8 + IDs, moves .p8 to safe location
    ├── check-ios-state.ts            Queries ASC API for ground truth (fastlane logs lie sometimes)
    ├── create-app-review-user.ts     Idempotently provisions reviewer user (Supabase auto-detected)
    ├── print-reviewer-creds.ts       Copy-paste output for Play Console (which has no API for App Access)
    └── validate-metadata.ts          Local char-limit + Kids Category trap detector

Gotchas it captures (so you don't have to learn them again)

• LANG=en_US.UTF-8 LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 must be forced when invoking fastlane or Ruby crashes on em-dashes/bullets in description.txt
• App Store Connect API key path in Fastfile must be File.expand_path("../app-store-connect-key.json", __dir__) — relative paths silently fail
• iPad 2048×2732 screenshots route to the wrong slot unless filename literally contains iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (3rd generation)
• copyright.txt is non-localized (lives at metadata/copyright.txt root, not per-locale)
• Phone numbers in App Review Information need +<country> format; no spaces
• Subtitle lives on appInfoLocalizations, NOT appStoreVersionLocalizations
• Play Console default locale is often en-GB, not en-US — wrong folder = silently ignored
• "kids" / "children" in App Store subtitle → Guideline 2.3.8 rejection unless in Kids Category
• China book/magazine apps need an Internet Publishing License — easier to remove China from territories (via UI; the v2 API is undocumented)
• Fastlane's "Successfully uploaded" log is NOT equivalent to "appears in correct UI slot" — always verify via API

Full list with workarounds in REFERENCE.md.

Supported stacks

• Capacitor — ios/App/App.xcodeproj, cap sync in build pipeline
• Expo — works after expo prebuild; native EAS Build/Submit also supported as an alternative path
• Flutter — ios/Runner.xcodeproj, flutter build appbundle for Android

Prerequisites

• fastlane (Homebrew or RubyGems)
• bun or Node 18+ (for the TypeScript helper scripts)
• For iOS: Xcode + an Apple Developer account
• For Android: Android Studio + a Google Play Console developer account + a service account JSON
• For automated reviewer-user provisioning: Supabase (other backends fall back to manual instructions)

Contributing

PRs welcome — especially for new rejection recipes. The skill's value compounds as more papercuts get documented. To add a recipe:

1. Add an entry to REJECTIONS.md under the relevant store + guideline number
2. Include the rejection email's verbatim wording (helps Claude pattern-match)
3. Include the fix as concrete steps
4. Open a PR

License

MIT

Acknowledgements

Built and battle-tested while shipping a real app to v1.0 on both stores. Every gotcha in REFERENCE.md came from a real failure, not a hypothetical.