Building your App

Capacitor works on a three-step build process: First, your web code is built (if necessary). Next, the built web code is copied to each platform. Finally, the app is compiled using the platform-specific tooling.

1. Building web code

Capacitor does not have any built-in feature to build web code. Instead, you will use your framework’s build process of choice.

Regardless of your build process, we recommend adding a build script to your package.json to enable the standard frontend build command:

{
  "scripts": {
    "build": "command-to-build (ex: webpack, tsc, babel, etc.)"
  }
}

npm run build

This builds your Progressive Web App if you’ve configured Progressive Web App support already.

2. Copying Web Code

Once your web code is built, it needs to be copied into each native project:

npx cap copy

Run this command each time you perform a build and consider adding it to the end of your build script in package.json.

3. Building Native Project

iOS

iOS relies on Xcode to do the final app compile:

npx cap copy ios
npx cap open ios

Once Xcode launches, you can build your app binary through the standard Xcode workflow.

Android

Android relies on Android Studio (or, optionally, the Android CLI tools) to build the app:

npx cap copy android
npx cap open android

Once Android Studio launches, you can build your app through the standard Android Studio workflow.