Is there a way to have app_store_connect submit builds ONLY to internal beta groups?

[VIadislavJevremovic]

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Which mobile framework are you using?

iOS (Swift, Objective-C)

Steps to reproduce

Using this code

auth: integration
submit_to_testflight: true
beta_groups:
  - InternalGroup

InternalGroup is defined within the 'Internal Testing' section on TestFlight (NOT External).

Expected results

Builds are sent to InternalGroup WITHOUT triggering Beta App Review.

Actual results

Builds are sent to InternalGroup triggering Beta App Review.

Quoting App Review: "We see that this binary has been uploaded for external Testing. If you need your app to be tested by internal testers only, please submit the newer binary for review."

It is unclear from the documentation page here https://docs.codemagic.io/yaml-publishing/app-store-connect/ whether only external beta group support is supported (appears to be so).

Note that beta groups can be defined as both internal/external and it seems API supports attaching builds to both:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreconnectapi/prerelease_versions_and_beta_testers/beta_groups
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreconnectapi/add_builds_to_a_beta_group

Xcode 15 introduced an option to deliver builds as Internal Only, do you support this?
Having submit_to_testflight: false and beta_groups defined produces a validation error in the webhook.

Also, why cannot all admin members of a team see the Intercom chat widget on a paid plan? (Safari, no popup blockers).

Build id (optional)

No response

[VIadislavJevremovic]

You specifically require submission to Beta Review when using beta_groups:

if submit_to_testflight and beta_group_names:
(https://github.com/codemagic-ci-cd/cli-tools/blob/master/src/codemagic/tools/app_store_connect/actions/publish_action.py#L267)

EDIT: Attaching builds to internal beta groups is indeed possible with App Store Connect API:

POST https://api.appstoreconnect.apple.com/v1/builds/BUILD_UUID/relationships/betaGroups
{
    "data": [
        {
            "type": "betaGroups",
            "id": "INTERNAL_BETA_GROUP_ID"
        }
    ]
}

@himesh-cm @dtrdic It would be nice if your development team can implement this.

[dtrdic]

hey @VIadislavJevremovic have you tried running the build without defining submit_to_testflight and beta_groups? The default behavior is that builds will be submitted to TestFlight for internal testers. The submit_to_testflight: true setting only supposed to work in conjunction with beta_groups and external testers

[VIadislavJevremovic]

Hello @dtrdic, yes - as mentioned yesterday (https://github.com/orgs/codemagic-ci-cd/discussions/2536#discussioncomment-9519077) we were doing it as a workaround.
But as we have multiple internal groups, this is sub-optimal, we need to manually assign builds to groups afterwards.

We would only need a scenario where beta_groups definition is sufficient to submit to a certain internal group (without mentioning submit_to_testflight).
I have forked cli-tools to support this, definitely possible. But support directly in YAML would be better.

[VIadislavJevremovic]

Hello again @dtrdic, I'm attaching a screenshot of my patch here. Essentially allowing using beta_groups only without submitting the build for review. This enables us to send test builds to specific internal test groups (manual distribution type). Technically it's merely removing the submit condition and allowing the wait phase.

@priitlatt it would be nice if you could chime in, thanks.

[priitlatt]

@VIadislavJevremovic, looks like you're right in that Apple does not require build to be submitted to TestFlight before it can be added to beta testing groups. I might be mistaken but I recall that when beta groups functionality was added back in '21 (in codemagic-ci-cd/cli-tools#164) Apple required the build to be submitted to TestFlight before group membership could be altered.

[VIadislavJevremovic]

Hi @priitlatt, indeed that might have been the case then, I've only recently investigated this API. I did confirm that it works now with endpoint (a few posts above) and with this modified publish action. Now, I might have missed other required changes here in the diff, just hinting at my thought process.

[helinanever]

Hi @VIadislavJevremovic, I've submitted your request as an issue to the Codemagic CLI tools repo: codemagic-ci-cd/cli-tools#409. This will be a prerequisite for any changes in Codemagic.

[VIadislavJevremovic]

Hi @helinanever thank you, much appreciated.

[helinanever]

Hi @VIadislavJevremovic , this change has been now implemented in the latest version of CLI tools. In Codemagic, you can now skip submitting to TestFlight and publish to beta groups directly if you set up a workflow like this one:

workflows:
  workflow:
    ...
    publishing:
      app_store_connect:
        auth: integration
        beta_groups:
          - InternalGroup