. A Comprehensive Guide for Establishing Fastlane in React Native
React Native, Software Development

A Comprehensive Guide for Establishing Fastlane in React Native

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16 April 2024
A Comprehensive Guide for Establishing Fastlane in React Native

Summary :Fastlane is a comprehensive collection of free and open-source technologies that assists developers of iOS and Android in automating laborious tasks. Additionally, it greatly improves the workflow for developing and deploying your React Native apps. We’ll take a quick look at React Native’s Fastlane in this blog article. We will also examine how to use Fastlane to automate the process of sending a React Native application to the Play Store (Android) and App Store (iOS), including a brief configuration guide.

How does Fastlane work?

Using Fastlane to automate releases and deployments for your iOS and Android apps is a straightforward but efficient solution. This platform allows for continuous deployment of high-quality applications without interfering with the daily responsibilities of your development team’s speed and agility. It allows ABB/APK/IPA time operations to be created and uploaded by iOS and Android developers.

It also includes a Ruby command line program and native plugins for Xcode (iOS) and Gradle (Android). It takes care of things like creating Google Play and App Store accounts, publishing apps to marketplaces, which releases beta software, Firebase Crashlytics, and more. You can use any of your Continuous Integration systems with the Flastlane.

How to Set Up React Native Fastlane

As is well known, creating and uploading an application (ABB,APK, or IPA) by hand to the store requires more time and effort, especially when dealing with iOS credentials and certificates. Thus, Fastlane steps in to save the day.

Let’s now proceed with the steps to configure Fastlane within the system:

Required conditions

Before beginning the process of setting up Fastlane within the system, make sure to take note of the requirements listed below, which include a few software packages and store accounts.

  • NodeJS
  • Android Studio
  • XCode
  • Google Play Console login information and Android app setup on the Play Store
  • Setting up an iOS app on the App Store and creating an Apple Developer Account.

First, create the git branch:

Putting Fastlane in Place

Using the command below, you can use Homebrew to install Fastlane on macOS:

Next, make a Fastlane folder in the React Native project’s root directory. Next, make a file in this directory named Fastfile.

We configure the lane, actions code, and Fastlane instructions in the Fastfile. A lane is a collection of operations that are performed in unison in order to automate a process. A function that completes a task is called an action.

We have defined the Android and iOS platforms in this file. They will have the designated lanes for every situation. When the platforms are defined, we can run lanes in this manner:

Configure Lanes for iOS

The ideal technique to code sign a match requires that you do the following before merging the match into a lane:

  • Destroy the current certificates and profiles.
  • Use the init option to set up the match.
  • Make a match-based lane for the iOS platform.

Configuration Match

fastlane match init

Next, it will ask you if you wish to keep your code signing IDs on Amazon S3, Google Cloud, or Git repositories.

We’ll use the git option for the time being.

fastlane match App Store

Setup Nuke

fastlane match nuke distribution

Establish a match-based lane on the iOS platform:

platform :ios do

desc 'Setup profile and certificate'
lane :certificates do
  match(app_identifier: 'com.fastlanedemo', type: 'App Store', readonly: true)
end

desc 'iOS build setup.'
private_lane :build do
  certificates
  increment_build_number(xcodeproj: './ios/fastlaneDemo.xcodeproj')
  gym(scheme: fastlaneDemo, project: './ios/fastlaneDemo.xcodeproj')
end

desc Upload to Testflight.'
  lane :beta do
    build
    pilot
    commit_version_bump(message: 'Upload build', xcodeproj: './ios/fastlaneDemo.xcodeproj')
    push_to_git_remote
  end

end

We have a match in the certificate’s lane that will save the certs and provisioning profiles to your OS X Keychain automatically.

We will establish a lane using the certificates lane we previously created and attempt to compile our application in order to set up the iOS build. After that, we wish to send our application to beta testing services by increasing the build number.


The beta lane will upload the local build to Testflight after using the build lane to send a signed.ipa to Pilot, pushing and committing in the setup branch by raising the build number.

Try out iOS beta testing:
Use the following command to launch the iOS beta lane:

fastlane ios beta

Configure Lanes for Android

The signing key (Keystore) needs to be generated or retrieved first, then added to the project.

The Android application will then be signed when it is built in Release mode using the assemble task.

platform :android do

desc 'Generate Android APK.'

private_lane :build do
  gradle(task: 'clean', project_dir: 'android/')
  gradle(task: 'assemble', build_type: 'Release', project_dir: 'android/')
end

desc 'Upload APK on Play Store.'
  lane :beta do
    build
    supply(track: 'beta', track_promote_to: 'beta')
    git_commit(path: ['./android/gradle.properties'], message: 'Upload versionCode')
    push_to_git_remote
  end

end

We will set up a build lane in order to produce a signed.apk.

Two Gradle actions are available now. The Gradle will be cleaned in the first action, and a release build will be created and assembled in the second.


Next, connect the assembleRelease to this small task to automate the versionCode bump.

the APK upload beta channel on the Play Store. Beta commits the versionCode changes, generates the signed.apk using the build channel, and uses Supply to push the local build to the Play Store as a beta release.

Try out Android Beta:
Use the following command to launch the Android beta lane.

fastlane android beta

In summary

Your application development process can be made much more dependable and efficient by integrating Fastlane into your React Native project. It makes tedious activities easier to complete, lowers the chance of mistakes, and makes it easier to apply best practices when developing mobile applications. To provide a better overall user experience, it is imperative to stay up to date with the most recent advancements and modifications in the React Native and Fastlane ecosystems as the tools and best practices change.

Speak with a top React Native app development company if you’re a business owner and unsure about how Fastlane can help with your application development. They can help you realize the full potential of your project and figure out how to make the most of Fastlane.

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