BuildNumbr

How does it work?

Just send a request to https://buildnumbr.com with a chosen identifier. The response will be 1, and the number will increase with each subsequent request.

❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app
1
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app
2
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app
3
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-other-app
1
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-other-app/set/1234
1234
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-other-app
1235
# Get the current value without incrementing
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-other-app/get
1235

Why?

• Automatically increasing the build number provides an easy means to identify the latest build in the sequence.
• Assigning a unique build number/version code to each build facilitates quick identification of problematic builds when issues arise.
• iOS’s developers must increment the build number for each uploaded binary; failure to do so leads to rejection, requiring recompilation and re-upload.
• Android developers must raise the version code for each app bundle upload; overlooking this results in rejection, even for a previous version.
• Ensuring continuous integration, without the need to manually commit build number/version code increments, is desirable.
• Achieving decentralized builds allows a subset of the team to build and deploy to Google Play/App Store while ensuring continuous incrementation of version codes/build numbers with each deployment.

Integrating with your project

IOS projects

Move into the folder where your Info.plist is and execute this command:

/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion (curl https://buildnumbr.com/my-app)" Info.plist

Android projects

1. In your build.gradle, make the versionCode variable like this:

android {
    ...
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        versionCode project.hasProperty('versionCode') ? project.property('versionCode') as int : 1
        ...
    }
    ...
}

2. Then the build command will be like this:

./gradlew assembleRelease -PversionCode=$(curl https://buildnumbr.com/my-app)

Fastlane

For iOS projects, use this step:

increment_build_number(
  xcodeproj: './ios/MyAwesomeApp.xcodeproj',
  build_number: sh('curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app-ios')
)

For Android projects, first change the build.gradle file as described above. Then specify the versionCode during your Gradle step:

gradle(task: 'assemble', build_type: 'Release', properties: {
  versionCode: sh('curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app-android')
})

Expo

Update app.json

#!/usr/bin/env node
const fs = require('fs');
const execSync = require('child_process').execSync;
const config = require('./app.json');

const BUILD_NUMBER_COMPONENT_ID = 'my-app-ios';
const VERSION_CODE_COMPONENT_ID = 'my-app-android';

config.expo.ios.buildNumber = String(
  execSync(`curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/${BUILD_NUMBER_COMPONENT_ID}`),
);
config.expo.android.versionCode = Number(
  execSync(`curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/${VERSION_CODE_COMPONENT_ID}`),
);

fs.writeFileSync('app.json', JSON.stringify(config, null, 2));

Use app.config.js

const execSync = require('child_process').execSync;

const BUILD_NUMBER_COMPONENT_ID = 'my-app-ios';
const VERSION_CODE_COMPONENT_ID = 'my-app-android';

module.exports = ({ config }) => {
  const buildNumber = String(
    execSync(`curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/${BUILD_NUMBER_COMPONENT_ID}`),
  );
  const versionCode = Number(
    execSync(`curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/${VERSION_CODE_COMPONENT_ID}`),
  );

  return {
    ...config,
    ios: {
      ...config.ios,
      buildNumber,
    },
    android: {
      ...config.android,
      versionCode,
    },
  };
};

FAQ

• My cURL also prints the progress, not just the build number!
  Try to add the -s flag to prevent progress being printed:

curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app

• There is no authentication! How do I prevent others from incrementing my build number?
  Just use an identifier that is really hard to guess, like https://buildnumbr.com/01hmqaf00ft6c98h1ytdxh6286. Maybe not that one exactly, but you get the idea.

• How can I get a really hard to guess unique identifier?
  

npx ulid | sed -e 's/\(.*\)/\L\1/'

• I incremented by accident. Can I go back?
  

# Get the current build number
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app/get
456
# Set the previous value (There isn't any service to decrease the value)
❯ curl -s https://buildnumbr.com/my-app/set/455
455

• I want to make sure the build number you are providing is actually a number
  You can add a check that the response that you get from buildnumbr.com is purely numeric.

export BUILD = $(curl https://buildnumbr.com/my-app)
re='^[0-9]+$'
    if ! [[ $BUILD =~ $re ]] ; then
    echo "error: Not a number" >&2; exit 1
fi

• My current build number is already at 123. How can I make buildnumbr.com start from this number?
  There is another endpoint for this. Simply append /set/{your_number} and your counter will jump to this number.

curl https://buildnumbr.com/my-app/set/123