Automate Builds - Capwrapper

Integrating capwrap-cli into your CI/CD pipeline lets you trigger builds and deploy to the App Store or Google Play automatically on every push, without any manual steps in the dashboard. This is useful for teams that want to ship mobile app updates as part of their standard release workflow.

Never commit your Capwrapper API key to version control. Store it as an encrypted secret in your CI/CD platform and reference it via an environment variable. Anyone with access to your API key can trigger builds and deployments on your account.

Install as a dev dependency

For CI/CD use, install capwrap-cli as a dev dependency rather than globally. This pins the CLI version to your project, ensures every pipeline run uses the same version, and avoids global install permission issues in CI environments.

npm install --save-dev capwrap-cli

When capwrap-cli is installed as a dev dependency, run every command with npx capwrap instead of capwrap. The npx prefix resolves the binary from your local node_modules, so no global install is needed.

Store your API key as a secret

Add your Capwrapper API key as a secret named CAPWRAP_API_KEY in your CI/CD platform. The examples below reference it as ${{ secrets.CAPWRAP_API_KEY }} (GitHub Actions) and $CAPWRAP_API_KEY (GitLab CI).

GitHub Actions example

The workflow below triggers on every push to main, installs capwrap-cli, authenticates, and creates an Android build.

name: Build Android App

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3

      - name: Set up Node.js
        uses: actions/setup-node@v3
        with:
          node-version: '18'

      - name: Install capwrap-cli
        run: npm install -g capwrap-cli

      - name: Authenticate
        run: capwrap auth login --key ${{ secrets.CAPWRAP_API_KEY }}

      - name: Create build
        run: |
          capwrap build create \
            --url https://myapp.example.com \
            --name "My App" \
            --bundle-id com.example.myapp \
            --platform android

GitLab CI example

The equivalent pipeline for GitLab CI. Set CAPWRAP_API_KEY as a masked CI/CD variable in your project’s Settings > CI/CD > Variables.

build-android:
  image: node:18
  script:
    - npm install -g capwrap-cli
    - capwrap auth login --key $CAPWRAP_API_KEY
    - capwrap build create --url $APP_URL --name "$APP_NAME" --bundle-id $BUNDLE_ID

Use GitLab CI/CD variables ($APP_URL, $APP_NAME, $BUNDLE_ID) to keep your pipeline configuration reusable across environments.

Best practices

Always store API keys as secrets. Never hardcode them in your pipeline configuration or commit them to your repository.
Pin the CLI version using npm install --save-dev capwrap-cli. This prevents unexpected behavior if a new CLI version introduces breaking changes.
Validate your config before building. Add a capwrap validate step before capwrap build create to catch configuration errors early and avoid burning build minutes on a job that will fail.
Check build status before deploying. Use capwrap build status <build-id> to confirm a build completed successfully before triggering a deployment step.
Use environment-specific variables for --url, --name, and --bundle-id so the same pipeline works across staging and production environments without modification.

​Install as a dev dependency

​Store your API key as a secret

​GitHub Actions example

​GitLab CI example

​Best practices

Install as a dev dependency

Store your API key as a secret

GitHub Actions example

GitLab CI example

Best practices