The best way to manage your TestFlight testers and builds from your terminal¶ ↑
Pilot
makes it easier to manage your app on Apple’s TestFlight. You can:
-
Upload & distribute builds
-
Add & remove testers
-
Retrieve information about testers & devices
-
Import/export all available testers
pilot uses spaceship.airforce to interact with App Store Connect 🚀
pilot is part of fastlane: The easiest way to automate beta deployments and releases for your iOS and Android apps.
Usage¶ ↑
For all commands you can specify the Apple ID to use using -u felix@krausefx.com
. If you execute pilot in a project already using {fastlane} the username and app identifier will automatically be determined.
Uploading builds¶ ↑
To upload a new build, just run
fastlane pilot upload
This will automatically look for an ipa
in your current directory and tries to fetch the login credentials from your fastlane setup.
You'll be asked for any missing information. Additionally, you can pass all kinds of parameters:
fastlane action pilot
You can pass a changelog using
fastlane pilot upload --changelog "Something that is new here"
You can also skip the submission of the binary, which means, the ipa
file will only be uploaded and not distributed to testers:
fastlane pilot upload --skip_submission
pilot does all kinds of magic for you:
-
Automatically detects the bundle identifier from your
ipa
file -
Automatically fetch the AppID of your app based on the bundle identifier
pilot uses {spaceship} to submit the build metadata and the iTunes Transporter to upload the binary. Because iTunes Transporter's upload capability is only supported on OS X, pilot upload
does not work on Linux, as described in this issue
List builds¶ ↑
To list all builds for specific application use
fastlane pilot builds
The result lists all active builds and processing builds:
+-----------+---------+----------+ | Great App Builds | +-----------+---------+----------+ | Version # | Build # | Installs | +-----------+---------+----------+ | 0.9.13 | 1 | 0 | | 0.9.13 | 2 | 0 | | 0.9.20 | 3 | 0 | | 0.9.20 | 4 | 3 | +-----------+---------+----------+
Managing beta testers¶ ↑
List of Testers¶ ↑
This command will list all your testers, both internal and external.
fastlane pilot list
The output will look like this:
+--------+--------+--------------------------+-----------+ | Internal Testers | +--------+--------+--------------------------+-----------+ | First | Last | Email | # Devices | +--------+--------+--------------------------+-----------+ | Felix | Krause | felix@krausefx.com | 2 | +--------+--------+--------------------------+-----------+ +-----------+---------+----------------------------+-----------+ | External Testers | +-----------+---------+----------------------------+-----------+ | First | Last | Email | # Devices | +-----------+---------+----------------------------+-----------+ | Max | Manfred | email@email.com | 0 | | Detlef | Müller | detlef@krausefx.com | 1 | +-----------+---------+----------------------------+-----------+
Add a new tester¶ ↑
To add a new tester to both your App Store Connect account and to your app (if given), use the pilot add
command. This will create a new tester (if necessary) or add an existing tester to the app to test.
fastlane pilot add email@invite.com
Additionally you can specify the app identifier (if necessary):
fastlane pilot add email@email.com -a com.krausefx.app
Find a tester¶ ↑
To find a specific tester use
fastlane pilot find felix@krausefx.com
The resulting output will look like this:
+---------------------+---------------------+ | felix@krausefx.com | +---------------------+---------------------+ | First name | Felix | | Last name | Krause | | Email | felix@krausefx.com | | Latest Version | 0.9.14 (23 | | Latest Install Date | 03/28/15 19:00 | | 2 Devices | • iPhone 6, iOS 8.3 | | | • iPhone 5, iOS 7.0 | +---------------------+---------------------+
Remove a tester¶ ↑
This command will only remove external beta testers.
fastlane pilot remove felix@krausefx.com
Export testers¶ ↑
To export all external testers to a CSV file. Useful if you need to import tester info to another system or a new account.
fastlane pilot export
Import testers¶ ↑
Add external testers from a CSV file. Create a file (ex: testers.csv
) and fill it with the following format:
John,Appleseed,appleseed_john@mac.com,group-1;group-2
fastlane pilot import
You can also specify the directory using
fastlane pilot export -c ~/Desktop/testers.csv fastlane pilot import -c ~/Desktop/testers.csv
Tips¶ ↑
Debug information¶ ↑
If you run into any issues you can use the verbose
mode to get a more detailed output:
fastlane pilot upload --verbose
Firewall Issues¶ ↑
pilot uses the iTunes Transporter to upload metadata and binaries. In case you are behind a firewall, you can specify a different transporter protocol from the command line using
DELIVER_ITMSTRANSPORTER_ADDITIONAL_UPLOAD_PARAMETERS="-t DAV" pilot ...
If you are using pilot via the fastlane action, add the following to your Fastfile
ENV["DELIVER_ITMSTRANSPORTER_ADDITIONAL_UPLOAD_PARAMETERS"] = "-t DAV" pilot...
Credentials Issues¶ ↑
If your password contains special characters, pilot may throw a confusing error saying your “Your Apple ID or password was entered incorrectly”. The easiest way to fix this error is to change your password to something that does not contains special characters.
How is my password stored?¶ ↑
pilot uses the CredentialsManager from fastlane.
Provider Short Name¶ ↑
If you are on multiple App Store Connect teams, iTunes Transporter may need a provider short name to know where to upload your binary. pilot will try to use the long name of the selected team to detect the provider short name. To override the detected value with an explicit one, use the itc_provider
option.
Use an Application Specific Password to upload¶ ↑
pilot/upload_to_testflight
can use an {Application Specific Password via the FASTLANE_APPLE_APPLICATION_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD
envirionment variable}[https://docs.fastlane.tools/best-practices/continuous-integration/#application-specific-passwords] to upload a binary if both the skip_waiting_for_build_processing
and apple_id
options are set. (If any of those are not set, it will use the normal Apple login process that might require 2FA authentication.)