[Bug]: Capacitor 8 does not generate App.xcworkspace like Capacitor 7

[hknaus-clgx]

Capacitor Version

Capacitor 7 (Cocoapods) would generate App.xcworkspace but Capacitor 8 (with SPM) does not. We have been using App.xcworkspace in the fastlane gym configuration like:

gym(
      workpace: "./ios/App/App.xcworkspace",
      ...
)

I could not find any related documentation in Capacitor 8 upgrade docs, https://capacitorjs.com/docs/updating/8-0. I did find a similar issue that was opened with AppFlow but appears to be closed without resolution information, #8282.

Is there an expectation that we should doing this differently?

Other API Details

npm --version
10.9.2

node --version
v22.16.0

Platforms Affected

• iOS
• Android
• Web

Current Behavior

gym fails with:

22:29:41]: Called from Fastfile at line 45
[22:29:41]: [22:29:41]: 43: ) [22:29:41]: 44: [22:29:41]: => 45: gym( [22:29:41]: 46: verbose: true, [22:29:41]: 47: workspace: "./ios/App/App.xcworkspace", [22:29:41]:
[22:29:41]: Workspace file not found at path '/Users/runner/work/1/s/ios/App/App.xcworkspace'

Capacitor 8 is not generating the App.xcworkspace file.

Expected Behavior

Looking for direction... should i be expecting the App.xcworkspace file from Capacitor 8 or what is the new alternative?

Project Reproduction

only have a private repo

Additional Information

No response

[OS-pedrogustavobilro]

Hey @hknaus-clgx, Capacitor SPM projects, unlike CocoaPods projects, do not come with App.xcworkspace file. That is by design.

This isn't something specific to Capacitor 8, SPM's been available since Capacitor 6 - it's rather that in Capacitor 8 SPM because the default for iOS. Related docs: https://capacitorjs.com/docs/ios/spm

I'm seeing two options for your use case.

1. [Recommended] Can you point to the xcodeproj instead?

gym(
      project: "./ios/App/App.xcodeproj",
      ...
)

2. If that doesn't work, you may try using CocoaPods in Capacitor 8. If you're creating a new project, you'd run this command to use CocoaPods in iOS

npx cap add ios --packagemanager CocoaPods

Let us know if the above helps. Thank you!

[hknaus-clgx]

@OS-pedrogustavobilro ahhhh i missed the App.xcworkspace reference in that link. I did try the project: "./ios/App/App.xcodeproj" but didn't have success. I will give that another try.

We know that Cocoapods is EOL late this year so we are trying to get ahead of that and move over to SPM. So going back to Cocoapods defeats the purpose. Are there some known issues I haven't stumbled upon that prevent moving to SPM and would make you recommend going back to Cocoapods?

[OS-pedrogustavobilro]

Hey @hknaus-clgx, I'm not aware of any known issues with SPM that require still remaining in CocoaPods. The one exception is if you're using any community plugins that do not support SPM yet.

I understand you have a private repo, but are you able to share a sample repo with minimal fastlane setup where you get the issue so that we can try to reproduce this and be able to suggest a fix?

[hknaus-clgx]

@OS-pedrogustavobilro I think I've overcome the issues on the iOS side. At least for our project it wasn't as simple as changing gym configuration from using App.xcworkspace to App.xcodeproject. I'll try to include the additional details here in case anyone else runs into similar issues...

1. Needed to add export_method (even though we used method in export_options) (i.e. "development | app-store | etc.")
2. Xcode 15+ attempts to sign SPM package targets (SDWebImage_SDWebImage, etc.) during archive. Need to add DEVELOPMENT_TEAM as an xcarg propagates it to all targets in the build — including SPM dependencies — so Xcode can sign them without erroring out. For example:

xcargs: "DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=#{ENV["team-id"]}",

3. update_code_signing_settings (which runs before gym in each lane) already writes the correct identity directly into the .xcodeproj file for your main app target only — no global override, no conflict with package targets. Removed codesigning_identity: "Apple [Development|Distribution]",
4. Pass CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY and CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Manual via xcargs. Setting CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Manual globally prevents SPM packages from conflicting (they'll just use the team ID without needing a specific profile), while CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY correctly targets the app. xcargs becomes:

xcargs: "DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=#{ENV["team-id"]} CODE_SIGN_IDENTITY='Apple [Development|Distribution]' CODE_SIGN_STYLE=Manual",

5. Known issue with Xcode 26 / macOS-15 (Azure Build Agent) where xcodebuild -showBuildSettings hangs due to SPM resolution. The fix is to increase the timeout via env var in the pipeline. Added environment variables config:

FASTLANE_XCODEBUILD_SETTINGS_TIMEOUT: 120
FASTLANE_XCODEBUILD_SETTINGS_RETRIES: 6

None of this was a Capacitor 8 issue per se, but a result of my Capacitor 8 upgrade coupled with migrating from Cocoapods to SPM.

@OS-pedrogustavobilro you can close this. Thank you for the prompt help!

PS we did have Cordova InAppBrowser plugin that was incompatible with SPM but it was version 6, updated it to version 8 and SPM was then okay with it.

[ionitron-bot]

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