Publish to App Stores — Overview
How VULK publishes your generated app to the Apple App Store and Google Play using your own developer accounts.
Publish to App Stores
VULK can take an app you generated and publish it to the Apple App Store and Google Play — built, signed, and submitted from inside VULK.
The single most important thing to understand up front:
Your app is published under your own Apple and Google developer accounts — not VULK's. Apple and Google require every app to ship under the account of the legal entity that owns it. VULK automates the entire mechanical pipeline on your behalf, but you must own the developer accounts and grant VULK API access to them. There is no way around this — every "publish to the store" platform works exactly this way.
What you need (summary)
| Apple App Store | Google Play | |
|---|---|---|
| Account | Apple Developer Program | Google Play Console |
| Cost | $99 / year | $25 one-time |
| Who can enrol | Individual or Organization (Organization needs a D‑U‑N‑S number) | Individual or Organization (identity verification required) |
| What you give VULK | App Store Connect API key (Issuer ID + Key ID + .p8) | Google Cloud service-account JSON linked in Play Console |
| Build machine | macOS (VULK runs this for you) | Linux (VULK runs this for you) |
Full step-by-step for each is in Apple account setup and Google account setup.
How your credentials are stored
When you connect a developer account, VULK stores the credential encrypted at rest and only decrypts it transiently inside the build pipeline to sign API requests. The credential is never exposed to the browser, never written to generated source, and never shared between users. You can revoke it at any time from VULK, and you can independently revoke the API key in Apple/Google — VULK never has more access than the key you issued it.
What gets published
VULK generates web apps (React / Vite). To meet App Store and Google Play requirements, VULK wraps your built web app in a native shell (adding native capabilities so it is a real app, not a thin web view), then builds and signs it:
- iOS: native archive → signed
.ipa→ uploaded to App Store Connect (TestFlight first, then App Store review). - Android: signed Android App Bundle (
.aab) → uploaded to a Play track (internal/closed/open/production).
The exact pipeline is described in How it works.
What VULK can and cannot do for you
VULK automates: app-record creation, signing assets, building, packaging, metadata, screenshots, build upload, and submitting for review — all via the official Apple and Google APIs.
VULK cannot do (these are deliberate platform rules, not VULK gaps):
- Enrol you in the Apple Developer Program or pay the $99 / $25 for you.
- Sign Apple's Paid Applications Agreement (only the Account Holder, on the web, can do this — required if you charge for the app).
- Pass Apple's or Google's human app review. VULK gets your app to the review queue in good shape; the reviewer's decision is theirs.
See Limitations for the complete list.