VSTS — Setting up your own build and release agent on Mac OSX / macOS

This article is part of blog series VSTS, Xamarin and Continuous Integration. Why does it matter?

When we set up build definitions in Visual Studio Team Services, we require a machine or a host (called Build agent) which will perform all the steps we define in build definitions. For Xamarin iOS projects it is recommended or rather required to have a machine that is running Mac OS or macOS as per new nomenclature.

Why? In order to build iOS apps, Xamarin requires Mac Agent to access iOS SDK, XCode compiler, interface builder, keychain certificates and provisioning profile configurations since Apple has not made those available for other platforms (Sad but we got to accept it).

There are two ways of getting your own build agent. First is to use third party provider like MacInCloud.com which cost you several dollars a month, other alternative is to setup your own build agent. Benefit of having your own build agent is you have total control over it and you can reuse it for other purposes while keeping build agent as a service in background.

This article will walk you through steps required for setting up your own build agent. While there are other tutorials (even on VSTS github) that walk you through the steps for setting up your own agent, there are several missing points in almost all the tutorials. I will try to cover them up.

Read more at http://www.wrapcode.com/vsts-xamarin-setup-build-agent-mac/

Originally published at www.wrapcode.com on July 10, 2016.