Flutter — Releasing to the App Store

This guide walks through releasing a Flutter app that uses Sankofa CodePush to the Apple App Store. The most important step — easy to miss, hard to recover from — is the Xcode checkbox in §3.

1. Build the release

Bump your pubspec.yaml version (e.g. version: 1.0.4+1), then run:

sankofa release ios

This produces a signed .xcarchive at build/ios/archive/Runner.xcarchive and registers the release with Sankofa under the version + build number from your pubspec.yaml. The version + build number ARE the patch addressing key, so any later patch must target the same 1.0.4+1 you set here.

For uncodesigned builds (CI farms that sign elsewhere), pass --no-codesign.

2. Upload to App Store Connect

Three equivalent options — pick whichever your workflow already uses.

3. The Xcode checkbox that breaks patches

The Sankofa CLI prints this same warning at the end of every sankofa release ios run; it is duplicated here because the upload step is where customers actually hit the dialog.

4. App Store Connect — privacy and encryption answers

App Store Connect will ask you two questions during the listing. Both have the same answers for every Sankofa CodePush–enabled Flutter app:

4.1 Encryption export compliance

Add this to your ios/Runner/Info.plist:

<key>ITSAppUsesNonExemptEncryption</key>
<false/>

Sankofa uses only TLS (built into iOS) and Ed25519 signature verification (authentication, not encryption — categorically exempt under US export rules). Setting this key to false bypasses the annual self-classification questionnaire on every upload.

If your app uses additional encryption beyond what Sankofa adds, set this to true and complete the classification flow per Apple's instructions.

4.2 Privacy Manifest

The sankofa_flutter package ships a Privacy Manifest (PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy) declaring exactly two Required-Reason API categories:

The vendored SankofaUpdaterFFI.xcframework also ships a slice-level manifest covering only FileTimestamp. Apple's App Store Connect validator (ITMS-91061 / ITMS-90683) will pass on a clean Sankofa-only app.

If you add other SDKs that use Required-Reason APIs (analytics, advertising, etc.), each one ships its own manifest — your app's combined manifest is the union.

5. Submit for review

In App Store Connect, attach the uploaded build to your release, fill in screenshots and metadata, and submit.

CodePush patches are not reviewed by Apple — they are interpreted Dart bytecode running through the Flutter engine's interpreter, covered by DPLA § 3.3.1(B). What you submit for review is the base binary; patches modify the Dart layer of the already-reviewed app. As long as your patches don't change the app's primary purpose (no new categories of feature, no covert storefront), this is the same compliance posture every code-push solution has shipped under for years.

6. Ship a patch

Once your release is approved and in production:

# Edit Dart code, then:
sankofa patch ios

Devices on the matching release version (1.0.4+1 in this example) will pick up the patch on the next app launch. No App Store review, no waiting period, no version bump.

Troubleshooting

See also

• Deploy product overview
• Flutter SDK overview
• Apple App Store Review Guideline 2.5.2
• Apple TN3183 — Required Reason API entries