Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CD) have become essential practices in modern software development, automating testing, building, and deploying apps. For Flutter developers, integrating CI/CD can help streamline the process of building and deploying cross-platform apps, enabling quicker iterations and more stable releases.
In this blog, we’ll explore setting up a CI/CD pipeline for a Flutter project, with detailed examples using GitHub Actions (a popular CI/CD tool).
Continuous Integration (CI):
Continuous Integration is the practice of automating the integration of code changes from multiple contributors into a shared repository. CI typically includes automated testing to ensure code stability.
Continuous Delivery (CD):
Continuous Delivery involves automating the release process, ensuring that any code that passes all tests in the CI pipeline can be deployed to production environments at any time.
Related read: What, How and Why of CI/CD
GitHub Actions provides a flexible, out-of-the-box CI/CD solution. Let’s walk through setting up a CI/CD pipeline for a Flutter project using GitHub Actions.
Related read: 6 Stages of DevOps CI/CD Pipeline
Step 1: Setting Up Your Flutter Project
If you haven’t already, create a new Flutter project by running:
flutter create flutter_ci_cd_demo
cd flutter_ci_cd_demoThis creates a basic Flutter app. Initialize a Git repository and push your code to GitHub:
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"
git remote add origin <your-repo-url>
git push -u origin mainStep 2: Configure GitHub Actions for CI
Navigate to your GitHub repository and create a workflow configuration for GitHub Actions:
Here is an example configuration for a CI pipeline with Flutter:
name: Flutter CI
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
branches:
- main
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Set up Flutter
uses: subosito/flutter-action@v2
with:
flutter-version: 'stable'
- name: Install dependencies
run: flutter pub get
- name: Run tests
run: flutter testThis workflow will trigger the following tasks on every push or pull request to the main branch:
Step 3: Adding Automated Tests
Flutter supports unit, widget, and integration tests. You can add simple unit tests by creating a new file under the test directory, for example, test/counter_test.dart:
import 'package:flutter_test/flutter_test.dart';
void main() {
test('Counter value should be incremented', () {
int counter = 0;
counter++;
expect(counter, 1);
});
}When the pipeline is triggered, this test will run automatically.
Step 4: Building APK and IPA for Deployment
To extend your pipeline to include building Android APKs or iOS IPAs, you can add steps to your GitHub Actions workflow:
- name: Build APK
run: flutter build apk --release
- name: Upload APK artifact
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
with:
name: app-release.apk
path: build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apkFor iOS, you’ll need to set up a macOS runner, as iOS apps require Xcode:
jobs:
build-ios:
runs-on: macos-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v3
- name: Set up Flutter
uses: subosito/flutter-action@v2
with:
flutter-version: 'stable'
- name: Install dependencies
run: flutter pub get
- name: Build IPA
run: flutter build ios --release --no-codesignStep 5: Deploying to Firebase or App Stores
You can automate the deployment of your app using tools like Fastlane or Firebase App Distribution.
For Firebase App Distribution, you can use the following configuration to integrate Firebase with your pipeline:
First, ensure you have the Firebase CLI token stored as a GitHub secret. You can generate the token by running Firebase login:ci.
Here’s an example of the extended pipeline to deploy your app to Firebase App Distribution:
- name: Install Firebase CLI
run: npm install -g firebase-tools
- name: Deploy APK to Firebase
run: firebase appdistribution:distribute build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk \
--app "<firebase-app-id>" \
--groups "<your-tester-group>" \
--token ${{ secrets.FIREBASE_TOKEN }}
- name: Deploy IPA to Firebase
if: runner.os == 'macOS'
run: firebase appdistribution:distribute build/ios/ipa/app-release.ipa \
--app "<firebase-app-id>" \
--groups "<your-tester-group>" \
--token ${{ secrets.FIREBASE_TOKEN }}Make sure to replace the placeholder <firebase-app-id> with your actual Firebase app ID and <your-tester-group> with the group of testers for the app.
Integrating CI/CD into your Flutter project offers significant advantages, including faster feedback loops, enhanced code quality, and more efficient deployments. By automating the build, test, and deployment processes, you can catch bugs earlier, ensure more stable releases, and reduce manual errors. This not only accelerates development but also leads to a more consistent app performance across platforms like Android and iOS.
In this tutorial, we walked through setting up GitHub Actions for a Flutter project, automating testing with Flutter, building APKs and IPAs, and deploying to Firebase. With these steps in place, you can streamline your development workflow and focus more on building features, knowing that your code is constantly being tested, built, and prepared for deployment.
The team at Mindbowser was highly professional, patient, and collaborative throughout our engagement. They struck the right balance between offering guidance and taking direction, which made the development process smooth. Although our project wasn’t related to healthcare, we clearly benefited...
Founder, Texas Ranch Security
Mindbowser played a crucial role in helping us bring everything together into a unified, cohesive product. Their commitment to industry-standard coding practices made an enormous difference, allowing developers to seamlessly transition in and out of the project without any confusion....
CEO, MarketsAI
I'm thrilled to be partnering with Mindbowser on our journey with TravelRite. The collaboration has been exceptional, and I’m truly grateful for the dedication and expertise the team has brought to the development process. Their commitment to our mission is...
Founder & CEO, TravelRite
The Mindbowser team's professionalism consistently impressed me. Their commitment to quality shone through in every aspect of the project. They truly went the extra mile, ensuring they understood our needs perfectly and were always willing to invest the time to...
CTO, New Day Therapeutics
I collaborated with Mindbowser for several years on a complex SaaS platform project. They took over a partially completed project and successfully transformed it into a fully functional and robust platform. Throughout the entire process, the quality of their work...
President, E.B. Carlson
Mindbowser and team are professional, talented and very responsive. They got us through a challenging situation with our IOT product successfully. They will be our go to dev team going forward.
Founder, Cascada
Amazing team to work with. Very responsive and very skilled in both front and backend engineering. Looking forward to our next project together.
Co-Founder, Emerge
The team is great to work with. Very professional, on task, and efficient.
Founder, PeriopMD
I can not express enough how pleased we are with the whole team. From the first call and meeting, they took our vision and ran with it. Communication was easy and everyone was flexible to our schedule. I’m excited to...
Founder, Seeke
We had very close go live timeline and Mindbowser team got us live a month before.
CEO, BuyNow WorldWide
If you want a team of great developers, I recommend them for the next project.
Founder, Teach Reach
Mindbowser built both iOS and Android apps for Mindworks, that have stood the test of time. 5 years later they still function quite beautifully. Their team always met their objectives and I'm very happy with the end result. Thank you!
Founder, Mindworks
Mindbowser has delivered a much better quality product than our previous tech vendors. Our product is stable and passed Well Architected Framework Review from AWS.
CEO, PurpleAnt
I am happy to share that we got USD 10k in cloud credits courtesy of our friends at Mindbowser. Thank you Pravin and Ayush, this means a lot to us.
CTO, Shortlist
Mindbowser is one of the reasons that our app is successful. These guys have been a great team.
Founder & CEO, MangoMirror
Kudos for all your hard work and diligence on the Telehealth platform project. You made it possible.
CEO, ThriveHealth
Mindbowser helped us build an awesome iOS app to bring balance to people’s lives.
CEO, SMILINGMIND
They were a very responsive team! Extremely easy to communicate and work with!
Founder & CEO, TotTech
We’ve had very little-to-no hiccups at all—it’s been a really pleasurable experience.
Co-Founder, TEAM8s
Mindbowser was very helpful with explaining the development process and started quickly on the project.
Executive Director of Product Development, Innovation Lab
The greatest benefit we got from Mindbowser is the expertise. Their team has developed apps in all different industries with all types of social proofs.
Co-Founder, Vesica
Mindbowser is professional, efficient and thorough.
Consultant, XPRIZE
Very committed, they create beautiful apps and are very benevolent. They have brilliant Ideas.
Founder, S.T.A.R.S of Wellness
Mindbowser was great; they listened to us a lot and helped us hone in on the actual idea of the app. They had put together fantastic wireframes for us.
Co-Founder, Flat Earth
Ayush was responsive and paired me with the best team member possible, to complete my complex vision and project. Could not be happier.
Founder, Child Life On Call
The team from Mindbowser stayed on task, asked the right questions, and completed the required tasks in a timely fashion! Strong work team!
CEO, SDOH2Health LLC
Mindbowser was easy to work with and hit the ground running, immediately feeling like part of our team.
CEO, Stealth Startup
Mindbowser was an excellent partner in developing my fitness app. They were patient, attentive, & understood my business needs. The end product exceeded my expectations. Thrilled to share it globally.
Owner, Phalanx
Mindbowser's expertise in tech, process & mobile development made them our choice for our app. The team was dedicated to the process & delivered high-quality features on time. They also gave valuable industry advice. Highly recommend them for app development...
Co-Founder, Fox&Fork
