Setting Up iOS Continuous Integration with VSTS/TFS

Since TFS 2015, Microsoft provides a cross‑platform continuous integration environment with open‑source build agents for Windows, Linux, and macOS. This article shows how to use VSTS/TFS to build iOS applications in a CI pipeline.

#1 Create a project or obtain the source code

The sample code is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/ups216/FoodTracker . Open the repository in Xcode to fetch the code.

#2 Create a Git repo in TFS and add the remote address

After creating a new repo in TFS, copy its remote URL and add it as a remote in Xcode.

#3 Download the VSTS agent and link it to the TFS project

Download the agent from https://github.com/Microsoft/vsts-agent/releases and follow the instructions.

Command line example:

~/$ mkdir myagent && cd myagent
~/myagent$ tar xzf ~/Downloads/vsts-agent-osx.10.11-x64-2.107.0.tar.gz

After extraction, run config.sh to configure the agent, providing the server URL and the name of the agent pool. Ensure the service account is added to the pool.

Start the agent with run.sh .

#4 Create a CI definition

In TFS, click the New Build button and select the Xcode build template.

Choose the previously pushed FoodTracker repository and enable the “Continuous integration” option so that each push triggers a build.

In the Variables tab, add required parameters, notably P12_PWD , an encrypted variable that stores the password for the iOS developer certificate. This avoids distributing the certificate to every developer.

In the Build tab, configure the Xcode task to use the Provision Profile and P12 certificate stored in the repository, referencing the password variable $(P12_PWD) so the IPA can be signed during the CI run.

#5 Run the build

After committing changes to Xcode and pushing to TFS, the build agent automatically triggers the build, or you can start it manually.

When the build succeeds, download the signed IPA from the build summary page.

In summary, VSTS/TFS allows unified management of Windows, macOS, and Linux development environments, providing open‑source build tasks for cross‑platform projects. Centralized CI also solves the common problem of securely handling iOS developer certificates for team builds.

Related articles:

Using SSH to connect to TFS/VSTS Git repositories

#VSTS Log# TFS 2015 Update 2.1 Release Notes

GitHub + VSTS bidirectional sync

DevOps Agile Lab – Open source documentation v2015.2 stable release

Follow the WeChat public account devopshub for more DevOps and R&D integration information.