Build your project for app stores

Learn how to create a production build for your app that is ready to be submitted to app stores from the command line using EAS Build.

Whether you have built a native app binary using EAS or locally, the next step in your app development journey is to submit your app to the stores. To do so, you need to create a production build.

Production builds are submitted to app stores for release to the general public or as part of a store-facilitated testing process such as TestFlight. This guide explains how to create production builds with EAS and locally. It is also possible to create production builds for Expo apps with any CI service capable of compiling Android and iOS apps.

Production builds using EAS

Production builds must be installed through their respective app stores. They cannot be installed directly on your Android Emulator or device, or iOS Simulator or device. The only exception to this is if you explicitly set "buildType": "apk" for Android on your build profile. However, it is recommended to use aab when submitting to stores, and this is the default configuration.

eas.json configuration

A minimal configuration for building a production build in eas.json that is already created when you create your first build:

{
  "build": {
    %%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
    "production": {}
    %%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
  }
}

Create a production build

To create a production build, run the following command for a platform:

You can attach a message to the build by passing --message to the build command, for example, eas build --platform ios --message "Some message". The message will appear on the website. It comes in handy when you want to leave a note with the purpose of the build for your team.

Alternatively, you can use --platform all option to build for Android and iOS at the same time:

Developer account

You will need to have a developer account for the app store you want to submit your app.

App signing credentials

Before the build process can start for app stores, you will need to have a store developer account and generate or provide app signing credentials.

Whether you have experience with generating app signing credentials or not, EAS CLI does the heavy lifting. You can opt-in for EAS CLI to handle the app signing credentials process.

Android app signing credentials

• If you have not yet generated a keystore for your app, you can let EAS CLI take care of that for you by selecting Generate new keystore, and then you are done. The keystore is stored securely on EAS servers.
• If you want to manually generate your keystore, see the manual Android credentials guide for more information.

iOS app signing credentials

• If you have not generated a provisioning profile and/or distribution certificate yet, you can let EAS CLI take care of that for you by signing into your Apple Developer Program account and following the prompts.
• If you want to manually generate your credentials, see the manual iOS credentials guide for more information.

Wait for the build to complete

By default, the eas build command will wait for your build to complete, but you can interrupt it if you prefer not to wait. Monitor the progress and read the logs by following the link to the build details page that EAS CLI prompts once the build process gets started. You can also find this page by visiting your build dashboard or running the following command:

If you are a member of an organization and your build is on its behalf, you will find the build details on the build dashboard for that account.

Production builds locally

To create a production build locally, see the following React Native guides for more information on the necessary steps that are required for Android and iOS.

These guides assume your project has android and/or ios directories containing the respective native projects. If you use Continuous Native Generation then you will need to run prebuild to generate the directories before following the guides.

Note: Following the guide below, in step four, when you build the release .aab for Android, use npx expo run:android --variant release command instead of npx react-native build-android --mode=release.

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