Quickstart: From Zero to First Release

Quickstart: From Zero to First Release

This guide walks the complete App Maker journey — from an empty organization to a build published on the app stores. Each step is a short summary that links to the detailed guide.

Prerequisites

• An Akinon account with access to an App Maker organization. If your team is new to the platform, an organization is created for you during onboarding.
• Apple Developer Program and/or Google Play Console developer accounts for the stores you plan to publish on.

Step 1 — Set Up Your Team

Invite teammates to the organization and assign roles. Privileges are scoped at three levels — organization, project, and deployment — so you can give a developer build rights without team-management rights.

➡️ Users & Roles

Step 2 — Create a Project

A project represents one mobile app. Creating it only takes a name and an optional description; App Maker provisions the project resources (including the git repository) for you.

➡️ Create Project

Step 3 — Add Credentials

Before the platform can build and sign your app, upload the signing material per platform:

• iOS — distribution certificate (+ password), APNs certificate/key, provisioning profiles (main and extension).
• Android / Huawei — keystore file, keystore password, key alias, key password.
• Store credentials — App Store Connect and Google Play API credentials, used for uploading builds to the stores.

Credentials are managed per build target (staging and production).

➡️ Credentials

Optionally, define build-time Environment Variables and Webhooks for CI/CD notifications.

Step 4 — Create the App Records on the Stores

The stores must know your app before App Maker can upload builds to them. Create the app record once on each store console:

➡️ Creating App on Apple App Store ➡️ Create App on Google Play Store

Step 5 — Trigger a Build

From the project's Deployments page, create a new build by selecting the OS (iOS / Android) and the build target (staging / production). The build runs through a pipeline whose stages you can follow live.

➡️ Deploy Project ➡️ Build Detail — timeline, logs, and artifact download.

Step 6 — Distribute to the Stores

Send a successful build to the stores: TestFlight beta review and external testers on iOS; internal → alpha → beta → production tracks on Google Play, with optional phased rollout.

➡️ Distribute to Stores

Step 7 — Operate Your Release

After release, you rarely need a full store round-trip:

• Ship JavaScript-only fixes over the air with CodePush — set a rollout percentage, watch adoption, promote or roll back.
• Enforce a mandatory upgrade with Force Update when an old version must be retired.

Where to Go Next

• Working from the terminal? Set up SSH keys and access tokens, then clone and run the project locally.
• Extending the app? Start with the Plugin Quickstart and Dependency Management.