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App Shipping Kit

The launch checklist, quality rules and AI build prompts I use to take an app from idea to testers.

Sample

Fernleaf is a made-up plant-watering app for iPhone, two weeks before its first test build. This is its checklist, scored the same way yours will be:

Fernleaf’s launch readiness

iOS, 35 of 70 done

52%ready to launch

12 blockers left

Test build

Not ready for testers yet

2 blockers stand between you and a test build.

  • No known crash or data-loss bug is open.
  • Debug menus, test unlocks and verbose logging are left out of release builds.

Store release

Not ready for the store yet

12 blockers stand between you and the store.

  • No known crash or data-loss bug is open.
  • Debug menus, test unlocks and verbose logging are left out of release builds.
  • App Store privacy details are filled in, including data your third-party SDKs collect.
  • And 9 more.

By section

  • Product6 of 7
  • Quality4 of 7, 1 blocker
  • Privacy4 of 7, 2 blockers
  • Licensing3 of 7, 1 blocker
  • Accessibility5 of 8
  • Store listing2 of 7, 3 blockers
  • Build5 of 7, 2 blockers
  • Beta4 of 7, 1 blocker
  • Release2 of 7, 2 blockers
  • After launch0 of 6

What’s left, blockers first

  1. No known crash or data-loss bug is open.

    BlockerQuality and performance

  2. Debug menus, test unlocks and verbose logging are left out of release builds.

    BlockerBuild and signing

  3. App Store privacy details are filled in, including data your third-party SDKs collect.

    BlockerPrivacy and permissions

  4. If people can create an account, they can start deleting it from inside the app.

    BlockerPrivacy and permissions

  5. Every sound effect and music file has commercial-use rights on record.

    BlockerLicensing and assets

Then 7 more blockers, 15 important items and 8 nice to have. The tool exports the whole list as markdown or as a CSV for a task app.

Check your own launch

  • The checklist for your platforms: iOS, Android, the web or any mix
  • A readiness score, the blockers left and a verdict for testers and the store
  • Ticks saved on this device, and what’s left as markdown or a CSV
  • The kit: checklist, quality rules, seven build prompts, bug loop and release lanes

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How I use this

The rules I keep for Orthros

Orthros is a prayer companion for Eastern Orthodox Christians, written in SwiftUI for iPhone, iPad and Mac. It’s free and supported by donations. It’s an app I’m building with AI coding tools, slowly and on purpose.

Every AI session starts by reading the same file: the project’s constitution. Its first rule is to design for humility. The app serves prayer and never competes with it, so when a change would make it more impressive without helping someone pray today, the change gets cut. The rules are written as tests, not suggestions.

This kit is the general version of that setup: the launch checklist, the quality principles, the build prompts in order and the bug loop, with the prayer-app specifics taken out.

Four of the rules

Two taps to prayer
From a cold open, a person is two taps from praying. No new feature may add a tap between them and the prayer.
The lamp, not the flame
No streak shame. Miss a day and the app invites you to relight your lamp. It never tells you that you lost a streak.
No AI spiritual features
I use AI to write the code. The app itself has no chatbot, no generated prayers and no AI voices.
Licensing is structural
Every piece of text carries its source, and the build fails on anything without a verified open licence.

The working agreement

  1. 1One feature per session, and a commit after every green build.
  2. 2Previews are the contract: every screen gets a preview in both themes and at the largest text size.
  3. 3I read every line of the core logic, because bugs hide there, and skim the screens.
  4. 4I am user number one. I don’t start the next phase until I’ve lived with the current one for a week.
  5. 5Errors wait, they don’t nag. No exclamation marks, no guilt.

Set it up where you already work

Claude app
In Settings, then Capabilities, turn on code execution and file creation. Then open Customize, then Skills, press +, choose Create skill, then Upload a skill, and pick the ZIP.
Claude Code or Codex
Unzip it and move the app-shipping-kit folder into ~/.claude/skills/ for Claude Code, or into ~/.agents/skills/ for Codex.
Any other chat assistant
Open the paste-in file from the ZIP and paste it at the start of a chat, or into the assistant's custom instructions.

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App Shipping Kit: a launch readiness checklist for apps built with AI | Rise Productive