Building Native Apps

CLI Build Commands

The CLI provides vue-native build for creating debug or release artifacts. It automatically bundles the JS before building the native project.

# Build iOS release
vue-native build ios

# Build Android APK
vue-native build android

# Build Android App Bundle (.aab) for Play Store
vue-native build android --aab

Build Options

Examples

# Release build with custom output directory
vue-native build ios --output ./artifacts

# Debug build
vue-native build ios --mode debug

# Android debug APK
vue-native build android --mode debug

# Specific Xcode scheme
vue-native build ios --scheme MyApp-Staging

# Android App Bundle for Play Store
vue-native build android --aab --output ./release

The CLI auto-bundles the JS before running the native build — you do not need to run bun run build separately.

Manual Build

If you prefer to build manually without the CLI, you can bundle the JS first:

bun run build

This produces an optimized, minified dist/vue-native-bundle.js.

iOS

1. Build the bundle: bun run build
2. Open ios/ in Xcode
3. Select your scheme and a real device or "Any iOS Device"
4. Product → Archive
5. In the Organizer, click Distribute App and follow the steps

The resource entry in project.yml automatically copies dist/vue-native-bundle.js into the app bundle at build time. The generated project links the bundled local native/ios/VueNativeCore Swift package so <native> block output is compiled into the application.

Android

1. Build the bundle: bun run build
2. Copy dist/vue-native-bundle.js to android/app/src/main/assets/
3. In Android Studio: Build → Generate Signed Bundle / APK
4. Choose Android App Bundle for Play Store, or APK for direct distribution

tasks.register<Copy>("copyJsBundle") {
    from("../../dist/vue-native-bundle.js")
    into("src/main/assets")
}
tasks.named("preBuild") { dependsOn("copyJsBundle") }

CI Pipeline

Every push to main and every pull request runs four parallel jobs in GitHub Actions:

Running the full pipeline locally

# TypeScript (the same gate is installed as the Lefthook pre-push hook)
bun run check:ts

# iOS
(cd native/ios && swiftlint lint)
(
  cd native/ios/VueNativeCore
  xcodebuild test \
    -scheme VueNativeCore \
    -sdk iphonesimulator \
    -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPhone 17,OS=latest' \
    -skipPackagePluginValidation
)

# Shared Swift package
(
  cd native/shared/VueNativeShared
  swift build
  swift test
)

# macOS
(
  cd native/macos/VueNativeMacOS
  swift build
  swift test
)

# Android
(
  cd native/android
  ./gradlew :VueNativeCore:ktlintCheck :VueNativeCore:testReleaseUnitTest
)

Publishing

Pushing to main with a pending Changeset, or manually dispatching the workflow on main, triggers publishing after the TypeScript and native release gates pass:

1. npm — publishes every versioned public workspace package selected by Changesets (runtime, navigation, Vite plugin, CLI, codegen, and SFC parser)
2. Swift Package — validated via xcodebuild (SPM resolves directly from the git tag)
3. Android Maven — publishes com.vuenative:core to GitHub Packages

Runtime, navigation, the Vite plugin, and the CLI form the fixed framework version group. SFC parser and codegen are versioned independently, so a release can legitimately contain framework 0.7.x packages and compiler 0.6.x packages. The annotated vX.Y.Z tag identifies the framework/native release; each newly published npm artifact also receives its own annotated <package-name>@<package-version> tag.