iOS Capabilities

Learn about built-in iOS capabilities supported in EAS Build and how to enable or disable them.

When you make a change to your iOS entitlements, this change needs to be updated remotely on Apple's servers before making a production build. EAS Build automatically synchronizes capabilities on the Apple Developer Console with your local entitlements configuration when you run eas build. Capabilities are web services provided by Apple, think of them like AWS or Firebase services.

This feature can be disabled with EXPO_NO_CAPABILITY_SYNC=1 eas build

Entitlements

In bare workflow apps, the entitlements are read from your ios/**/*.entitlements file.

In the managed workflow, the entitlements are read from the introspected Expo config. You can see what your introspected config looks like by running npx expo config --type introspect in your project, then look for the ios.entitlements object for the results.

Enabling

If a supported entitlement is present in the entitlements file, then running eas build will enable it on Apple Developer Console. If the capability is already enabled, then EAS Build will skip it.

Disabling

If a capability is enabled for your app remotely, but not present in the native entitlements file, then running eas build will automatically disable it.

Supported Capabilities

EAS Build will only enable capabilities that it has built-in support for, any unsupported entitlements must be manually enabled via Apple Developer Console.

Support	Capability	Entitlement string
	Access Wi-Fi Information	`com.apple.developer.networking.wifi-info`
	App Attest	`com.apple.developer.devicecheck.appattest-environment`
	App Groups	`com.apple.security.application-groups`
	Apple Pay Payment Processing	`com.apple.developer.in-app-payments`
	Associated Domains	`com.apple.developer.associated-domains`
	AutoFill Credential Provider	`com.apple.developer.authentication-services.autofill-credential-provider`
	ClassKit	`com.apple.developer.ClassKit-environment`
	Communicates with Drivers	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.communicates-with-drivers`
	Communication Notifications	`com.apple.developer.usernotifications.communication`
	Custom Network Protocol	`com.apple.developer.networking.custom-protocol`
	Data Protection	`com.apple.developer.default-data-protection`
	DriverKit Allow Third Party UserClients	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.allow-third-party-userclients`
	DriverKit Family Audio (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.audio`
	DriverKit Family HID Device (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.hid.device`
	DriverKit Family HID EventService (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.hid.eventservice`
	DriverKit Family Networking (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.networking`
	DriverKit Family SCSIController (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.scsicontroller`
	DriverKit Family Serial (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.family.serial`
	DriverKit Transport HID (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.hid`
	DriverKit USB Transport (development)	`com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb`
	DriverKit for Development	`com.apple.developer.driverkit`
	Extended Virtual Address Space	`com.apple.developer.kernel.extended-virtual-addressing`
	Family Controls	`com.apple.developer.family-controls`
	FileProvider TestingMode	`com.apple.developer.fileprovider.testing-mode`
	Fonts	`com.apple.developer.user-fonts`
	Group Activities	`com.apple.developer.group-session`
	HealthKit	`com.apple.developer.healthkit`
	HomeKit	`com.apple.developer.homekit`
	Hotspot	`com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotConfiguration`
	Increased Memory Limit	`com.apple.developer.kernel.increased-memory-limit`
	Inter-App Audio	`inter-app-audio`
	Low Latency HLS	`com.apple.developer.coremedia.hls.low-latency`
	MDM Managed Associated Domains	`com.apple.developer.associated-domains.mdm-managed`
	Maps	`com.apple.developer.maps`
	Media Device Discovery	`com.apple.developer.media-device-discovery-extension`
	Multipath	`com.apple.developer.networking.multipath`
	NFC Tag Reading	`com.apple.developer.nfc.readersession.formats`
	Network Extensions	`com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension`
	On Demand Install Capable for App Clip Extensions	`com.apple.developer.on-demand-install-capable`
	Personal VPN	`com.apple.developer.networking.vpn.api`
	Push Notifications	`aps-environment`
	Push to Talk	`com.apple.developer.push-to-talk`
	Recalibrate Estimates	`com.apple.developer.healthkit.recalibrate-estimates`
	Shared with You	`com.apple.developer.shared-with-you`
	Sign In with Apple	`com.apple.developer.applesignin`
	SiriKit	`com.apple.developer.siri`
	System Extension	`com.apple.developer.system-extension.install`
	TV Services	`com.apple.developer.user-management`
	Time Sensitive Notifications	`com.apple.developer.usernotifications.time-sensitive`
	Wallet	`com.apple.developer.pass-type-identifiers`
	WeatherKit	`com.apple.developer.weatherkit`
	Wireless Accessory Configuration	`com.apple.external-accessory.wireless-configuration`
	iCloud	`com.apple.developer.icloud-container-identifiers`
	HLS Interstitial Previews	Unknown

The unsupported capabilities either don't support iOS, or they don't have a corresponding entitlement value. Here are all of the official Apple capabilities.

Capability identifiers

Merchant IDs, App Groups, and CloudKit Containers can all be automatically registered and assigned to your app. These assignments require Apple cookies authentication (running locally) as the official App Store Connect API does not support these operations.

Debugging iOS capabilities

You can run EXPO_DEBUG=1 eas build to get more detailed logs regarding the capability syncing.

If you have trouble using this feature, you can disable it with the environment variable EXPO_NO_CAPABILITY_SYNC=1.

To see all of the currently enabled capabilities, visit Apple Developer Console, and find the bundle identifier matching your app, if you click on it you should see a list of all the currently enabled capabilities.

Manual setup

There are two ways to manually enable Apple capabilities, both systems will require any existing Apple provisioning profiles to be regenerated.

Xcode

Preferred method for bare workflow or projects that do not use Expo Prebuild to continuously generate the native android and ios directories.

Open the ios directory in Xcode with xed ios. If you don't have an ios/ directory, run npx expo prebuild -p ios to generate one.
Then follow the steps mentioned in Add a capability.

Apple Developer Console

First step is to add the respective key/value pairs to your ios/[app]/[app].entitlements (or more specific entitlements file for multi-target apps). You can refer to Supported Capabilities to determine which entitlements keys should be added.

Log into Apple Developer Console. Click on "Certificates, IDs & Profiles", then navigate to "Identifiers" page.
Choose the bundle identifier that matches your app's bundle identifier.
Scroll down and enable a capability, some capabilities may require extra setup.
Scroll to the top and press "Save". You will see a dialog that says "Modify App Capabilities", press "Confirm" to continue. You will need to regenerate any provisioning profiles that use this bundle identifier before they'll be valid for building a code signed production .ipa.

If adding capabilities process has not been done correctly then your iOS native build will fail with an error similar to:

❌  error: Provisioning profile "*[expo] app.bacon.hello AppStore ..." doesn't support the Associated Domains capability.

❌  error: Provisioning profile "*[expo] app.bacon.hello AppStore ..." doesn't include the com.apple.developer.associated-domains entitlement.