Automated Mobile Distributions

At Compass, the mobile team relies heavily on automation. The tools we use include:

CircleCI

Continuous Integration and Delivery

We like CircleCI because it just works. It takes just 3 lines to get it working

Fastlane

fastlane - iOS and Android Automation for Continuous Delivery

We like fastlane because it allows us to quickly script the automation for a new appstore/testflight/hockey release

HockeySDK

HockeyApp - The Platform for Your Apps

We like hockey because it is easy to get started:

With the combination of these simple tools, we are able to free up more time to code, iterate, and improve. Our workflow is simple:

Pull Requests

Github makes it simple to publish changes, review, and merge.

Continuous Integration

With a simple configuration in CircleCI, a lane in fastlane, our beta releases are available via hockey roughly 5–15 minutes after a merge to master.

Release Candidates

We use release candidates to give our QA/Engineering team a chance to play with the new features before they go live. Anyone with access to our repo can kick off a new build via git tags.

Test Flight

We use the fastlane pilot command to push our code into TestFlight and iTunes Connect. This script is run on a team members laptop once we get the go-ahead from Product and QA.

Release

We tend to use the manual release button to push our updates to the store. This gives every member the opportunity to be the hero