Simplifying CI/CD in Flutter Development with Fastlane and GitHub Actions

Hello, Fellow Flutter Developers! 👋

Today, we're diving into the wonderfully streamlined world of Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD). If these terms sound like tech jargon, don’t worry! Think of CI/CD as a magical conveyor belt that automatically carries your Flutter app from coding to the user’s device, all while ensuring that it’s top-notch and bug-free. 🚀

To make this happen, we’ll be using two superheroes: Fastlane and GitHub Actions. Together, they will automate and simplify our release process, letting us focus more on coding and less on the technicalities of deployment. Let’s get started!

Fastlane

Fastlane automates the tedious tasks in your development process. Imagine it as a helper that takes care of tasks like screenshots, code signing, and releasing your app.

• Screenshots: Fastlane can automatically capture and manage screenshots for multiple devices. No need to manually snap pics for different screen sizes!

• Code Signing: Fastlane helps manage certificates and provisioning profiles, making sure that your app is secure. This is the thing that changes everything on iOS.

• Releasing: With Fastlane, pushing new app versions to app stores becomes a breeze.

GitHub

We all know GitHub Actions by now. No PR is complete without some workers running. The same should happen for releases. It helps with:

• Automated Tests: Every time you push code, GitHub Actions can run tests to ensure everything works perfectly.

• Build and Deploy: GitHub Actions can automatically build your app and deploy it to a testing environment or even to the App Store.

Combining Powers 🚀

My CI/CD pipeline looks like this:

1. Code Push: Push your latest code to GitHub. In my case a release branch.

2. Automated Tests: GitHub Actions jumps in, running automated tests.

3. Build: If tests pass, Fastlane helps build the app.

4. Deployment: Fastlane then takes the app and smoothly delivers it to the app store.

Setting It All Up

Setting up Fastlane and GitHub Actions might seem like a task, but it’s all about configuring some files in your project. Here’s a simple outline:

• Set up Fastlane in your Flutter project.

• Configure Fastlane lanes for building and releasing your app.

• Set up a GitHub Actions workflow to run tests and use Fastlane for deployment.

My iOS github workflow file:

My Fastfile 

My Matchfile

And my Appfile

And voilà! You’ll have a system that automatically handles a significant part of your app’s deployment process.

This saves so much time.

Happy coding. Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!