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Publishing to App Store Connect
What Forge needs to upload an iOS build to App Store Connect: an App Store Connect API key on a store account, and nothing else, since the .ipa names its own app and version.
An iOS build is never notarised; it is uploaded to App Store Connect, where TestFlight hands it to testers and App Review takes it from there. Forge uploads through Apple's build upload API — the same reservation, upload and commit that Transporter performs — from a Linux container, with no Mac and no Java in the path.
What you need
- An App Store Connect API key with the Admin, App Manager or
Developer role: App Store Connect → Users and Access → Integrations
→ Team Keys. Three things come from that page — the Issuer ID, the
Key ID and the
.p8file, downloadable exactly once. They go on an App Store Connect account on Stores, which the project picks on its Stores tab. Apple notarisation under Signing takes the same three, set on the project. - The app, created in App Store Connect with the bundle id your project
builds. Forge reads the bundle id, the version and the build number out of
the
.ipaitself, so there is nothing to type here and nothing to get out of step. - An iOS distribution signature. The
.ipaForge uploads is the one it signed with your iOS certificate and an App Store provisioning profile; a development or ad-hoc profile is refused by Apple at processing time, not at upload.
What Forge does with them
Nothing until you press the button. On a build's page, beside an iOS artifact, Publish to App Store Connect asks once and then, on a builder: mints a short-lived token from the key, finds the app by bundle id, reserves an upload for that version and build number, sends the file in the parts Apple asks for, and marks it uploaded. Then it waits a few minutes for Apple's processing. A build that finishes processing in that window is reported as such; one still processing is reported as accepted, and Apple mails the outcome as it always has. A red upload quotes Apple's own sentence — most often a build number App Store Connect already holds, or a key without the role.
What it does not do
It does not submit for review, add testers, or write release notes. Those are App Store Connect's forms, and a build that appears in TestFlight is the whole of what a build system should decide.