Deploying your Cordova or Ionic app to the stores manually can be a painful experience.
It is time-consuming, error prone and not beginner-friendly. Fortunately, Fastlane helps you automate the process.

We created a Cordova Fastlane Plugin to help you setup your deployment process.
It will build your Cordova app and automatically manage codesigning. It works for both Android and iOS, even with XCode 8!
No more ++code>Code signing is required for product type 'Application' in SDK 'iOS 10.2'++/code> errors.

Have a Cordova app at the ready

Say we have a Cordova app (or an Ionic app) that we want to deploy to the stores.

If you don't have one already, run for example:

++pre>++code>npm install -g cordova
cordova create my-awesome-app com.awesome.app "My Awesome App"
++/code>++/pre>

Set up a private repository for iOS certificates and profiles

Match is awesome for handling your team certificates and your provisioning profiles. It will store them in a private git repo for you. See the fastlane codesigning guide for more info.

Create a private repository for match if you haven't done so yet. Bitbucket is a well known free option.

Use the Cordova Fastlane plugin

At the root of your project create a fastlane folder and generate an Appfile and a Fastfile:

++pre>++code>mkdir fastlane
touch fastlane/Appfile fastlane/Fastfile
++/code>++/pre>

Then add the Cordova Fastlane Plugin:

++pre>++code>fastlane add_plugin cordova
++/code>++/pre>

When asked ++code>Should fastlane modify the Gemfile at path 'Gemfile' for you? (y/n)++/code>, reply with ++code>y++/code>.

Then you can integrate the plugin into your Fastlane setup, for example:

++pre>platform :ios do
 desc "Deploy ios app on the appstore"

 lane :create do
   produce(app_name: "myapp")
 end

 lane :deploy do
   match(
     type: "appstore",
     git_url: "https://bitbucket.org/Almouro/certificates"

# REPLACE WITH YOUR PRIVATE REPO FOR MATCH
   )
   cordova(platform: 'ios') # Using the Cordova Fastlane Plugin
   appstore(ipa: ENV['CORDOVA_IOS_RELEASE_BUILD_PATH'])
 end
end

platform :android do
 desc "Deploy android app on play store"

 lane :deploy do
   cordova(
     platform: 'android',
     keystore_path: './prod.keystore',

# REPLACE THESE LINES WITH YOUR KEYSTORE INFORMATION
     keystore_alias: 'prod',
     keystore_password: 'password'
   ) # Cordova Fastlane Plugin
   supply(apk: ENV['CORDOVA_ANDROID_RELEASE_BUILD_PATH'])
 end
end++/pre>

with an ++code>Appfile++/code> such as

++pre>app_identifier "com.awesome.app"
apple_id "apple@id.com"
team_id "28323HT"++/pre>

Piece of cake now!

For iOS, run ++code>fastlane ios create++/code> once to create your app on the developer member center and iTunes Connect.

Now, you only have to run ++code>fastlane ios deploy++/code> and ++code>fastlane android deploy++/code> to deploy to the stores!

Where to go from here

• You can see all the plugin options by running ++code>fastlane actions cordova++/code> at the root of your Cordova app. 
  
  
• The Fastlane docs are great to learn more about how it can ease your life. 
  
  
• If you have any issue or idea for improvement on the plugin, please make them know here.

• You might like this article: How to deploy an iOS app to Tesflight in 5 minutes with Fastlane