Build Distribution

Build Distribution helps you securely distribute iOS builds to your internal teams and beta testers. Streamline your distribution workflow with automated uploads from CI.

Getting Started

Accepted Formats: XCArchive

Upload Mechanisms: Fastlane Plugin (version 1.35.0 or higher) or Sentry CLI

Uploading With Fastlane

The Fastlane plugin can be used to upload XCArchive or IPA builds to Sentry. On GitHub Actions, Fastlane will automatically detect your build's metadata and include it in the upload. In other Continuous Integration (CI) environments, you may need to manually set metadata values.

1. Configure the Sentry Fastlane plugin (version 2.5.3):

   Ruby

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   bundle exec fastlane add_plugin fastlane-plugin-sentry
   

2. Set up SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN in your environment (you can generate a token here)

3. In FastFile, add a call to sentry_upload_build after your build step.

   Uploading an XCArchive (preferred):

   When using build_ios_app, the XCArchive path is automatically detected from SharedValues::XCODEBUILD_ARCHIVE:

   Ruby

   Fastfile

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   lane :upload_to_sentry do
     build_ios_app(
       scheme: 'YourScheme',
       configuration: 'Release'
     )
     sentry_upload_build(
       org_slug: 'your-org',
       project_slug: 'your-project',
       build_configuration: 'Release'
     )
   end
   

   You can also explicitly specify the xcarchive_path:

   Ruby

   Fastfile

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   lane :upload_to_sentry do
     sentry_upload_build(
       org_slug: 'your-org',
       project_slug: 'your-project',
       xcarchive_path: 'path/to/YourApp.xcarchive',
       build_configuration: 'Release'
     )
   end
   

   Uploading an IPA:

   When using build_ios_app, the IPA path is automatically detected from SharedValues::IPA_OUTPUT_PATH.

   Ruby

   Fastfile

   Copied

   lane :upload_to_sentry do
     build_ios_app(
       scheme: 'YourScheme',
       configuration: 'Release'
     )
     sentry_upload_build(
       org_slug: 'your-org',
       project_slug: 'your-project',
       build_configuration: 'Release'
     )
   end
   

   To upload an IPA instead of the XCArchive, explicitly specify ipa_path:

   Ruby

   Fastfile

   Copied

   lane :upload_to_sentry do
     build_ios_app(
       scheme: 'YourScheme',
       configuration: 'Release'
     )
     sentry_upload_build(
       org_slug: 'your-org',
       project_slug: 'your-project',
       ipa_path: 'path/to/YourApp.ipa',
       build_configuration: 'Release'
     )
   end
   

4. After an upload has successfully processed, confirm the metadata is correct in the Sentry UI

   

The Fastlane plugin automatically detects the following build metadata. If needed, the metadata values can be overridden by passing parameters to sentry_upload_build:

sentry_upload_build(
  org_slug: 'your-org',
  project_slug: 'your-project',
  xcarchive_path: 'path/to/YourApp.xcarchive', # or ipa_path: 'path/to/YourApp.ipa'
  build_configuration: 'Release',
  # Optional metadata overrides:
  head_sha: 'abc123',
  base_sha: 'def456',
  vcs_provider: 'github',
  head_repo_name: 'organization/repository',
  base_repo_name: 'organization/repository',
  head_ref: 'feature-branch',
  base_ref: 'main',
  pr_number: '42'
)

See the Fastlane repo for more information.

Uploading with the Sentry CLI

1. Install the sentry-cli (version 3.4.1)

   We recommend using the latest version for the best possible experience, but at a minimum version 2.58.2 is required.

2. Authenticate the Sentry CLI by following these steps

3. Build your app to create an XCArchive (preferred) or IPA

4. Invoke the following CLI command to trigger the upload:

   Bash

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   sentry-cli build upload app.xcarchive \
     --org your-org \
     --project your-project \
     --build-configuration Release
   

5. After an upload has successfully processed, confirm the metadata is correct in the Sentry UI

   

Downloading Builds

Once builds are uploaded to Sentry, your team members and beta testers can download them through the Sentry web interface.

1. Open the URL printed to the console after uploading the build
2. Click the Install button on the right side of the page

3. Either scan the QR code from a mobile device or click the Download button to download the build directly

After downloading, you can install the build directly on your iOS device. For more information on installing enterprise apps, see Apple's documentation on installing custom apps.

Upload Metadata

We use build metadata to organize builds in the UI and ensure correct comparisons.

* required field

Build Configuration

Features such as automatically comparing the head build against the base build will only compare builds of the same build configuration. This is important to consider when setting up Size Analysis in your CI. For example, Release and Debug builds can be drastically different depending on the compiler and linker settings used during the build process. Trying to compare the two would give unexpected results.

Uploading Best Practices

Strip Swift AST

For optimal processing speeds, strip __swift_ast from your dSYMs before uploading to Sentry. This section of the binary is a copy of your code's swiftmodule file and is only used for runtime debugging with LLDB. It is not required for symbolication, Size Analysis, or Build Distribution.

The script below can be used to strip __swift_ast from your dSYMs. The xcarchive is modified in-place. Back up first if needed.

Prerequisites: Xcode command line tools (otool, lipo), Python 3

#!/bin/bash
set -euo pipefail

if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 <path-to-xcarchive>" >&2
  exit 1
fi

XCARCHIVE="$1"
DSYMS_DIR="$XCARCHIVE/dSYMs"

if [[ ! -d "$DSYMS_DIR" ]]; then
  echo "Error: No dSYMs directory found at $DSYMS_DIR" >&2
  exit 1
fi

TOTAL_ZEROED=0
STRIPPED_COUNT=0

# Zero out __swift_ast in a single-arch Mach-O binary.
# Prints the number of bytes zeroed (0 if section not found).
strip_thin_binary() {
  local binary="$1"

  local ast_info
  ast_info=$(xcrun otool -l "$binary" 2>/dev/null | awk '
    /sectname __swift_ast/ { found = 1 }
    found && /^[[:space:]]+size / {
      cmd = "printf \"%d\" " $2
      cmd | getline dec_size
      close(cmd)
    }
    found && /^[[:space:]]+offset / {
      print dec_size " " $2
      found = 0
    }
  ')

  if [[ -z "$ast_info" ]]; then
    echo "0"
    return
  fi

  local ast_size ast_offset
  ast_size=$(echo "$ast_info" | awk '{print $1}')
  ast_offset=$(echo "$ast_info" | awk '{print $2}')

  if [[ "$ast_size" -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "0"
    return
  fi

  # Skip if already zeroed
  local already_zeroed
  already_zeroed=$(/usr/bin/python3 -c "
import sys
with open(sys.argv[1], 'rb') as f:
    f.seek(int(sys.argv[2]))
    print('1' if f.read(int(sys.argv[3])) == b'\0' * int(sys.argv[3]) else '0')
" "$binary" "$ast_offset" "$ast_size")

  if [[ "$already_zeroed" == "1" ]]; then
    echo "0"
    return
  fi

  chmod u+w "$binary" 2>/dev/null || true
  /usr/bin/python3 -c "
import sys
with open(sys.argv[1], 'r+b') as f:
    f.seek(int(sys.argv[2]))
    f.write(b'\0' * int(sys.argv[3]))
" "$binary" "$ast_offset" "$ast_size"

  echo "$ast_size"
}

# Handle both fat (multi-arch) and thin (single-arch) binaries.
strip_binary() {
  local binary="$1"

  local lipo_info
  lipo_info=$(xcrun lipo -info "$binary" 2>/dev/null) || true

  if echo "$lipo_info" | grep -q "Architectures in the fat file"; then
    local archs
    archs=$(echo "$lipo_info" | sed 's/.*: //')

    local tmp_dir
    tmp_dir=$(mktemp -d)
    local thin_files=()
    local saved=0

    for arch in $archs; do
      local thin_file="$tmp_dir/$arch"
      xcrun lipo "$binary" -thin "$arch" -output "$thin_file"

      local bytes_str
      bytes_str=$(strip_thin_binary "$thin_file")
      saved=$((saved + bytes_str))

      thin_files+=("$thin_file")
    done

    if [[ $saved -gt 0 ]]; then
      chmod u+w "$binary" 2>/dev/null || true
      xcrun lipo -create "${thin_files[@]}" -output "$binary"
    fi

    rm -rf "$tmp_dir"
    echo "$saved"
  else
    strip_thin_binary "$binary"
  fi
}

echo "Zeroing __swift_ast in dSYMs in: $DSYMS_DIR"
echo ""

while IFS= read -r dsym_bundle; do
  dsym_name=$(basename "$dsym_bundle")
  dwarf_dir="$dsym_bundle/Contents/Resources/DWARF"

  if [[ ! -d "$dwarf_dir" ]]; then
    continue
  fi

  for binary in "$dwarf_dir"/*; do
    [[ -f "$binary" ]] || continue

    zeroed=$(strip_binary "$binary")
    if [[ "$zeroed" -gt 0 ]]; then
      zeroed_mb=$(echo "scale=1; $zeroed / 1048576" | bc)
      echo "  $dsym_name — zeroed ${zeroed_mb} MB"
      TOTAL_ZEROED=$((TOTAL_ZEROED + zeroed))
      STRIPPED_COUNT=$((STRIPPED_COUNT + 1))
    fi
  done
done < <(find "$DSYMS_DIR" -name "*.dSYM" -type d)

TOTAL_MB=$(echo "scale=1; $TOTAL_ZEROED / 1000000" | bc)
echo ""
echo "Done. Processed $STRIPPED_COUNT dSYM(s), zeroed ${TOTAL_MB} MB of __swift_ast data."