Fastlane deliver .ipa file to TestFlight from Expo build URL

Question

I'm following this article to auto-deploy .ipa file after building with Expo: https://blog.expo.io/automating-standalone-expo-app-builds-and-deployments-with-fastlane-exp-and-exptool-9b2f5ad0a2cd

It's work, but I have to download .ipa file from Expo then upload it to TestFlight. This takes a long time for waiting while Expo already builds .ipa file and we just need to upload it to TestFlight.

Current script to deploy is:

// Download .ipa file from Expo build    
curl -o app.ipa "$(expo url:ipa --non-interactive)"

// Upload this to TestFlight
fastlane deliver --verbose --ipa "app.ipa" --skip_screenshots --skip_metadata

I tried to replaced app.ipa by Expo build url (something like: https://exp-shell-app-assets.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/ios/myusername/app-bfaf-ca19c79a9c0f-archive.ipa)

fastlane deliver --verbose --ipa "https://expo-url.ipa" --skip_screenshots --skip_metadata

It throws an error because fastlane deliver always add current directory before URL, the error is:

Error setting value 'https://exp-shell-app-assets.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/ios/myusername/app-bfaf-ca19c79a9c0f-archive.ipa' for option 'ipa'

[!] Could not find ipa file at path '/Users/root/project/https://expo-url.ipa'

I tried fastlane pilot upload and got the same issue.

Thanks!

Answer 1

First of all you should make sure that the bundle identifier exists both on Apple Developer Center (to sign the app) and in App Store Connect (to push the app to the store).

Than you just need to implement Pilot which is Fastlane action to push ipa files to Testflight.

Answer 2

The linked resource is for a deprecated Expo build method using tooling that's nearly 4 years old. FastLane likely changed since the linked page was written, and likely no longer works for this workflow.

FastLane has 12 pages of releases/changes since this question was asked and one of them likely defaulted FastLane to the current working directory: https://github.com/fastlane/fastlane/releases?page=12

Answer 3

fastlane upload file in your pc , not file link... if you want build standalone expo ... I recommend to turtle-cli see tutorial here ... turtle-cli make server localhost to build source output file in /Users/xxx/expo-apps/ .. then you can copy file and using fastlane to upload file to App Store and Google play.