pilot¶

Alias for the upload_to_testflight action

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.

pilot
Supported platforms	ios
Author	@KrauseFx

5 Examples¶

upload_to_testflight

testflight # alias for "upload_to_testflight"

pilot # alias for "upload_to_testflight"

upload_to_testflight(skip_submission: true) # to only upload the build

upload_to_testflight(
  username: "felix@krausefx.com",
  app_identifier: "com.krausefx.app",
  itc_provider: "abcde12345" # pass a specific value to the iTMSTransporter -itc_provider option
)

Parameters¶

Key	Description	Default
`username`	Your Apple ID Username	*
`app_identifier`	The bundle identifier of the app to upload or manage testers (optional)	*
`app_platform`	The platform to use (optional)	`ios`
`ipa`	Path to the ipa file to upload	*
`changelog`	Provide the 'what's new' text when uploading a new build
`beta_app_description`	Provide the beta app description when uploading a new build
`beta_app_feedback_email`	Provide the beta app email when uploading a new build
`skip_submission`	Skip the distributing action of pilot and only upload the ipa file	`false`
`skip_waiting_for_build_processing`	Don't wait for the build to process. If set to true, the changelog won't be set, `distribute_external` option won't work and no build will be distributed to testers	`false`
`update_build_info_on_upload`	DEPRECATED! Update build info immediately after validation. This is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. App Store Connect no longer supports setting build info until after build processing has completed, which is when build info is updated by default	`false`
`apple_id`	The unique App ID provided by App Store Connect	*
`distribute_external`	Should the build be distributed to external testers?	`false`
`notify_external_testers`	Should notify external testers?	`true`
`demo_account_required`	Do you need a demo account when Apple does review?	`false`
`first_name`	The tester's first name
`last_name`	The tester's last name
`email`	The tester's email
`testers_file_path`	Path to a CSV file of testers	`./testers.csv`
`wait_processing_interval`	Interval in seconds to wait for App Store Connect processing	`30`
`team_id`	The ID of your App Store Connect team if you're in multiple teams	*
`team_name`	The name of your App Store Connect team if you're in multiple teams	*
`dev_portal_team_id`	The short ID of your team in the developer portal, if you're in multiple teams. Different from your iTC team ID!	*
`itc_provider`	The provider short name to be used with the iTMSTransporter to identify your team. To get provider short name run `pathToXcode.app/Contents/Applications/Application\ Loader.app/Contents/itms/bin/iTMSTransporter -m provider -u 'USERNAME' -p 'PASSWORD' -account_type itunes_connect -v off`. The short names of providers should be listed in the second column
`groups`	Associate tester to one group or more by group name / group id. E.g. `-g "Team 1","Team 2"`
`wait_for_uploaded_build`	Use version info from uploaded ipa file to determine what build to use for distribution. If set to false, latest processing or any latest build will be used	`false`
`reject_build_waiting_for_review`	Expire previous if it's 'waiting for review'	`false`

* = default value is dependent on the user's system

To show the documentation in your terminal, run

fastlane action pilot

View source code

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