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KXBuild command-line tools

Build iOS projects and produce .ipa files from the command line on Windows, Linux and macOS. kxbuild is compatible with xcodebuild and xcrun, so your existing build scripts, automation and CI pipelines run without changes. Every command can output JSON, so AI assistants and scripts can drive it easily.

kxbuild: projects and builds

Check, fix and update

Checks your development environment, installs what's missing and updates what's outdated. Pass a project path and it also gets Flutter, React Native, Expo and similar projects ready. Run it after installing, after updating and whenever a build fails.

Create from a template

Create a project in one command from the built-in templates, covering SwiftUI, UIKit, CocoaPods, Flutter, React Native, Expo and more. To make your own template, put your project in resources/templates in the install folder.

Source to .ipa in one command

Build Xcode projects, workspaces and Swift packages directly. Release builds write an upload-ready .ipa to the project folder, and Debug builds with --install go straight to your iPhone.

Inspect and edit projects

Print targets, schemes, bundle IDs and build settings as JSON. Change a setting, add a folder group or apply changes in bulk, all without opening project.pbxproj.

Swift package dependencies

Resolved automatically when you build, or on their own. Pin versions with Package.resolved, work offline without fetching remotes, share the package cache, and reset package caches with a single flag.

xcodebuild compatibility and automation

xcodebuild and xcrun compatibility

The install includes xcodebuild and xcrun commands that accept the common Xcode options. Existing build scripts and automation work unchanged, and so do the build scripts that come with React Native, Expo, Flutter and Cordova.

Scripts, CI and AI

Build on Windows, Linux and macOS CI machines; with a fixed output folder and package cache, artifacts match your local builds. Add --json to a command to get machine-readable progress, diagnostics and results with meaningful exit codes, so scripts and AI coding assistants can drive it directly.

Folders and environment variables

What's in the install folder, where build products go and how to turn up logging.

Environment variable KXBUILD_HOME

Prefer a GUI? The VS Code extension does the same

Everything you can do on the command line, you can do in the extension, with identical options and output. Switch between them any time.