Automate Release Notes Updates with Codemagic CI/CD

This article explains how to automate the process of updating release notes for your mobile apps using Codemagic CI/CD, saving time and ensuring consistency across app store listings.

What You'll Achieve

By following this guide, you'll be able to automatically populate your app store release notes with content managed directly in your Git repository. This eliminates the tedious task of manually entering the same information each time you submit a new version.

What is Codemagic?

Codemagic is a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) tool specifically designed for Flutter development. It automates the testing, building, and deployment of your apps. While it supports various platforms like iOS, Android, and React Native, it offers a Workflow Editor GUI for Flutter projects, allowing intuitive configuration without complex .yaml files.

Codemagic provides a generous free tier (500 minutes per month) for personal use. For more information on pricing, visit their website.

Requirements

• Your released app must be registered with both App Store Connect and Google Play Console.
• Distribution process must be enabled within Codemagic's Workflow Editor.

Creating Files

The structure of your release notes files will depend on your language code settings in the app stores.

• If only en-US is configured: Create a release_notes.txt file in your project's working directory (typically the repository's root). Inside, write your release notes as a simple string, for example: Bug fixes and performance improvements.
• If other language codes are configured: Create files named release_notes_<language_localization_code>.txt for each target language. For Japanese, this would be release_notes_ja.txt. Consult the App Store Connect and Google Play Console documentation for the correct language codes, as some differ.

Alternatively, you can consolidate your release notes into a single release_notes.json file:

[
  {
    "language": "en-US",
    "text": "Bug fixes and performance improvements."
  },
  {
    "language": "ja",",
    "text": "不具合修正および性能改善を行いました。"
  }
]

Specify the language code in the language field and the release notes in the text field.

Distribution

The following describes how to upload the content to each store console.

App Store Connect

In the Codemagic Workflow Editor, navigate to the Distribution > App Store Connect section. Ensure that Submit to App Store review is checked. Build your source branch, and the release notes will automatically populate in App Store Connect. The same process applies for TestFlight reviews.

Google Play Console

In the Distribution > Google Play section, verify that your distribution setting is set to upload to Production. Build your source branch. The release notes will appear in the Google Play Console.