How to Build a Mac Catalyst App in GitHub Actions

Build a Catalyst app by passing a -destination of platform=macOS,variant=Mac Catalyst to xcodebuild against your iOS scheme.

Mac Catalyst builds your iPad target as a native Mac app. Target it with -destination "platform=macOS,variant=Mac Catalyst"; the scheme must have Catalyst enabled in the project.

Steps

• Enable Mac Catalyst on the target in Xcode and commit the change.
• Run xcodebuild build with -destination "platform=macOS,variant=Mac Catalyst".
• Add CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO for a non-distribution CI build.

Workflow

jobs:
  catalyst:
    runs-on: macos-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: Build for Catalyst
        run: |
          xcodebuild build \
            -scheme MyApp \
            -destination 'platform=macOS,variant=Mac Catalyst' \
            CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO

Gotchas

• If Catalyst is not enabled on the target, the destination resolves to nothing and xcodebuild reports Unable to find a destination.
• Catalyst uses macOS frameworks; iOS-only APIs may be unavailable and need #if targetEnvironment(macCatalyst) guards.

Related guides