Appflow Build Process Overview

This article provides an overview of the build steps used in Appflow. Below is a diagram followed by an explanation of the steps:

Now for a review of these steps:

1. To start a build, you will first select a commit, a target platform, and a build stack.
2. Once the build starts, the runner instance is prepared and the project repo is cloned.
3. Next, a web app distribution is created. To start this process, a few steps will detect files in the project. 
   • The get_appflow_config step checks for an appflow.config.json file in the project, if this file exists it will be used to determine the dependency install command and the web build command.
   • The detect_package_manager step checks for files related to npm and yarn.
     
     • If a package-lock.json or .npmrc file exists in the project, the npm build command will be used.
     • If a yarn.lock file or .yarnrc file exists in the project, the yarn install command will be used.
   • The detect_native_type step checks for a capacitor.config.ts, js, or json file in the project.
     • If one of these files exist, Capacitor will be is detected.
     • If the file does not exist, Cordova will be detected.
4. Once these detection steps are completed the dependency_install step will be executed, followed by the build_pro_app step.  Both these steps are dependent on the detection steps from above.
5. After a successful web build, the process changes based on the target platform.
   • For a web build, the artifact will be uploaded to Appflow, and the process is done!
6. For a native build, the next step will be preparing the signing certificates.
7. Syncing the web app into the native project is next.
   • For Capacitor this will be npx cap sync [ios|android]
   • For Cordova, this will be cordova platform add [ios|android]
8. If native configs are being used, these will be added next during a modify step.
9. The native project will now be compiled.
10. The process now completes by uploading the build artifact file(s) to the app store and then uploading to the Appflow Dashboard!