onebox

Get your app on the App Store.

Agent skills and plain guides that take an Expo / React Native app from idea to the App Store: signing, TestFlight, the store page and App Review. Most apps need no server. If yours does, it can run on one cheap box.

Site and guides · Example plan · For agents: llms.txt

What it feels like

You tell your coding agent your idea. It makes the repo, checks your Mac, and then walks you through the rest one step at a time. Each step is one question. "Yes" is enough to go on.

You:    I have an idea for an iPhone app: a warranty keeper.

Agent:  Next: Make your app's repo. Continue?
You:    yes

Agent:  Done: your app runs in the Simulator.
        Next: One place for your secrets. Continue?
You:    yes

Agent:  Next: Sign in with Apple. This part is yours: turn it on for your app
        in your Apple Developer account (2 minutes, I will show you where).
        Ready when you are.

No checklist to read first. The agent checks what your Mac and your app already have. It speaks up only when something blocks the next step, and then only about that one thing. The full plan is in PLAN.md if you want it.

Who it is for

• Yes: a developer who has never shipped an iOS app, and wants the whole road in one place: signing, TestFlight, the store page and App Review.
• Yes: someone who already ships, and wants the repeatable parts done the same way every time.
• Not yet: someone who has never used a terminal. The skills explain each step, but they assume you can run a command and read an error.
• Not covered: Android and the Play Store. iOS only for now.

Quick start

In Claude Code:

/plugin marketplace add ggi3201/onebox
/plugin install start@onebox

In Codex:

codex plugin marketplace add ggi3201/onebox
codex plugin add start@onebox

Then open your agent in an empty folder and describe your idea. Or run /start:new-app to make the repo, and /start:plan later to see what is done and what is next. Run /start:plan again after each step. It ticks what you finished.

In Codex, a skill starts with $ instead of /: $start:new-app, $start:plan.

Other agents (Cursor, Gemini CLI and more):

npx skills add ggi3201/onebox

Installed this way, the skills have flat names: /start:plan is plan, and in Claude Code it hides the built-in /plan. In Claude Code, install the plugins instead (above).

The skills are plain SKILL.md files, so any agent that reads them can use them. I build and test with Claude Code.

To get fixes later, in Claude Code, run this in a shell (/plugin update is not a command inside a session):

claude plugin marketplace update onebox
claude plugin update <plugin>@onebox

Then type /reload-plugins in your Claude Code session, or restart it. The /plugin screen can do the same. In Codex:

codex plugin marketplace upgrade onebox
codex plugin add <plugin>@onebox

A plugin updates only when its version went up. CHANGELOG.md says what changed in each version.

The road to the App Store

1. Apple: join the Apple Developer Program ($99 a year) and install Xcode.
2. TestFlight: build on your own Mac, for free, and upload (ship-ios:expo-local-build, ship-ios:appstore-connect).
3. Your phone: a test build on your own iPhone, without TestFlight (ship-ios:ios-preview-build).
4. Store page: the icon, screenshots from real screens, and text that search finds (ship-ios:draw-app-icon, ship-ios:app-store-screenshots, ship-ios:store-listing).
5. App Review: find what Apple will reject before Apple does, then submit (ship-ios:app-store-ready, ship-ios:appstore-connect).
6. Updates: a JavaScript fix without App Review, and every version after the first (ship-ios:eas-update).

Every skill runs in your coding agent on your Mac. A server is optional. If the app needs one, the box skills set it up on one machine over SSH.

What is in the box

14 skills in 4 plugins, and 31 guides. Install the start plugin first. It tells you which of the others you need.

Plugin	Runs on	What it does	Skills
start	your Mac	Makes the repo, writes your plan, and says what is next	plan, new-app
ship-ios	your Mac	From a working app to TestFlight and the store	app-store-ready, expo-local-build, eas-update, appstore-connect, ios-preview-build, app-store-screenshots, store-listing, draw-app-icon
box	your server	A safe, small server for the API and the site	box-setup, expose-service, new-landing-page
dev	your Mac	Makes the agent prove its work before it says "done"	test-loop

How it works

• Guides are the source of truth. Each account, key or topic has one plain page in guides/. Skills follow the guides and add only the files no guide has. Start with guides/start-here.md.
• The plan reads your repo. /start:plan looks at what the app already has, asks only what it cannot see, and ticks what is done.
• Nothing personal inside a skill. Your Apple team, box host, domain and secrets tool live in ~/.config/onebox/config.json, and an optional .onebox.json per app. Secrets are never stored there, only references. See CONFIG.md.
• Cheap first. Local builds before paid cloud builds. One box before many.

How well tested is it

I have shipped three iOS apps with this, and got each one through App Review. Getting people to download them is a different skill, and not one I have, so the kit does not teach marketing. I keep testing it on new apps. The latest runs built a new app from an empty folder with the skills and guides. Every problem they found became an issue and a fix. The three layouts (.NET API, Node API, no server) each ran end to end in the iOS Simulator.

Not tested yet: a clean Mac with nothing installed, and a person who is new to all of it. docs/clean-user-test.md is the script for that. If you try it, tell me where you got stuck.

Built with onebox

My own apps ship with these skills and guides:

• Foodie: save recipes from TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, plan the week and shop by aisle. On the App Store.
• Thraed: a digital closet with AI try-on and colour analysis. On the App Store.
• Lift: a strength log with an AI coach. In TestFlight.

All of them are on chewable.app.

Contributing and problems

A skill or guide wrong or unclear? Open an issue. Write "the app" or myapp, never a real name, host or account.

Writing a skill? Read CONTRIBUTING.md first. It is short. Security problems: see SECURITY.md. Everyone here follows the code of conduct.

Also good

Skills by other people that work well next to these. Each has its own install steps and license.

• ponytail: stops the agent from overbuilding.
• impeccable: design audits and polish for a landing page or app UI.
• taste-skill: pushes UI away from the generic AI look.
• emil-design-eng: motion, timing and polish.
• RevenueCat ai-toolkit: SDK setup and paywalls. claude plugins marketplace add RevenueCat/ai-toolkit.
• frontend-design: Anthropic's plugin. /plugin install frontend-design@claude-plugins-official.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Not affiliated with Apple, Expo or the other companies named here. Names and trademarks belong to their owners.