General: Forums topic: Code Signing Forums subtopics: Code Signing > General, Code Signing > Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Code Signing > Notarization, Code Signing > Entitlements Forums tags: Code Signing, Signing Certificates, Provisioning Profiles, Entitlements Developer Account Help — This document is good in general but, in particular, the Reference section is chock-full of useful information, including the names and purposes of all certificate types issued by Apple Developer web site, tables of which capabilities are supported by which distribution models on iOS and macOS, and information on how to use managed capabilities. Developer > Support > Certificates covers some important policy issues Bundle Resources > Entitlements documentation TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles — This includes links to the other technotes in the Inside Code Signing series. WWDC 2021 Session 10204 Distribute apps in Xcode with cloud signing Certificate Signing Requests Explained forums post --deep Considered Harmful forums post Don’t Run App Store Distribution-Signed Code forums post Resolving errSecInternalComponent errors during code signing forums post Finding a Capability’s Distribution Restrictions forums post Signing code with a hardware-based code-signing identity forums post New Capabilities Request Tab in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles forums post Isolating Code Signing Problems from Build Problems forums post Investigating Third-Party IDE Code-Signing Problems forums post Determining if an entitlement is real forums post Mac code signing: Forums tag: Developer ID Creating distribution-signed code for macOS documentation Packaging Mac software for distribution documentation Placing Content in a Bundle documentation Embedding nonstandard code structures in a bundle documentation Embedding a command-line tool in a sandboxed app documentation Signing a daemon with a restricted entitlement documentation Defining launch environment and library constraints documentation WWDC 2023 Session 10266 Protect your Mac app with environment constraints TN2206 macOS Code Signing In Depth archived technote — This doc has mostly been replaced by the other resources linked to here but it still contains a few unique tidbits and it’s a great historical reference. Manual Code Signing Example forums post The Care and Feeding of Developer ID forums post TestFlight, Provisioning Profiles, and the Mac App Store forums post For problems with notarisation, see Notarisation Resources. For problems with the trusted execution system, including Gatekeeper, see Trusted Execution Resources. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

You can now easily request access to managed capabilities for your App IDs directly from the new Capability Requests tab in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles > Identifiers. With this update, view available capabilities in one convenient location, check the status of your requested capabilities, and see any notes from Apple related to your requests. Learn more about capability requests.

I've alluded to this before in these posts and there are some posts from others about this, e.g. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/759845 and I've filed some bugs related to the behavior. FB20212935 FB19451832 FB19450508 FB19450162 FB19449747 Our company owns the USB vendor IDs X and Y . We've been granted a USB transport entitlement for both of those IDs. The crux of the problem is that I want to build a driver for USB vendor ID Y. Xcode's well-hidden auto-generated provisioning profile for my driver contains com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb: { idVendor = X; } which is obviously not what I want. Xcode fails to provision the target. But I have another, much older project with an auto-generated provisioning profile containing com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb: { idVendor = X; }, { idVendor = Y; } I can build a driver for idVendor Y without problems in this project. But that doesn't help me with my new project. What can I do to fix this? Do I need to request our entitlements again? I fear if I do so, something will get lost in the process. Is there a way to inspect what we have already been granted? - I can't see a "managed entitlements" section on the account portal. I can go through the motions of making a new App ID, then I can see that some Capability Request have been "Assigned", but I don't see what their values are. A second question I have is about the userclient-access entitlement. Are these tied to the bundle ID of the app which claims the access? In other words, if I have two drivers com.mycompany.app1.driver1 com.mycompany.app2.driver2 and I would like to have com.mycompany.app1 communicate with com.mycompany.app1.driver1, I would ask for the com.apple.developer.driverkit.userclient-access capability for com.mycompany.app1.driver1. But must I request that access for each specific app bundle ID that will talk to that driver, or once the entitlement is granted, can I use com.apple.developer.driverkit.userclient-access = { com.mycompany.app1.driver1 } in any of my apps?

Hi Apple DTS & community folks, I’m reaching out regarding an issue we’ve encountered with the com.apple.developer.mail-client capability for our app (bundle identifier: so.notion.Mail). We were granted this entitlement last week to allow the app to be set as a default Mail client. While everything works as expected when archiving and distributing builds locally in Xcode, we’re running into a problem when using Xcode Cloud. Specifically, Xcode Cloud attempts to archive and distribute an Ad-Hoc build, but the Ad-Hoc provisioning profile does not include this special entitlement. Since we’re using Xcode-managed profiles, we don’t have the ability to create or adjust an explicit profile ourselves. This issue only arises in Xcode Cloud—local distribution works unless we explicitly attempt an Ad-Hoc build (which is not our intent). I’ve included a screenshot of the error for reference. We found this forum post describing the same issue, where the resolution was Apple enabling the entitlement for Ad-Hoc builds. We’d like to request that Apple enable this capability for Ad-Hoc builds for the Notion Mail application so that Xcode Cloud distribution functions correctly. Thank you for your help!

Hello, I am experiencing an issue with the Apple Pay capability on my App ID. I have created a Merchant ID. I enabled Apple Pay in the App ID configuration and linked it to the merchant. However, sometimes when I revisit the App ID in the Apple Developer portal, the Apple Pay capability appears disabled, even though I saved it. This happens intermittently; at some times the capability is correctly shown as enabled, and other times it disappears. Context: I am using Expo Managed Workflow with EAS Build for iOS. The issue prevents the provisioning profile from including Apple Pay, which causes Stripe isPlatformPaySupported function to return false on ios devices. Attached: Screenshots of the App ID page showing Apple Pay enabled and disabled. Could you please advise why the capability is not being consistently saved, and how to ensure it stays enabled? Thank you,

An open-source app that I bundle for macOS needs to use the disable-library-validation entitlement. In spite of TN3125: Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles | Apple Developer Documentation#Entitlements-on-macOS claiming that hardened runtime entitlements don't need provisioning profiles and the app successfully notarizing, trying to run the app fails with the error "Disallowing because no eligible provisioning profiles found". So I created a provisioning profile, but when creating the App ID the only selection that seemed relevant was Hardened Runtime. That turns out not to include disable-library-validation so now launching fails with "Unsatisfied entitlements: >com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation" What's the right capability?

Hello! Trying to find any info about how to add In-App Purchase with application Entitlements.plist file manually (NOT with XCode). Is there any reference within keys and description? What need to be in this file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>key-for-in-app-purchase</key> <string>value</string> </dict> </plist>

Hello, I'm developing a feature for my app, that allows users to challenge their friends. The friend request functionality is built using Universal Links, but I've run into a significant issue. The Universal Links are correctly deep-linking into the app. However, once the app opens, nothing happens—the friend request acceptance or rejection flow does not occur. This prevents users from completing friend requests and building their friend list. Here are examples of the Universal Links I'm generating: https://www.strike-force.app/invite?type=invite&amp;amp;userID=... https://www.strike-force.app/invite?type=invite&amp;amp;friendRequestID=... https://www.strike-force.app/profile?userID=... I've recently updated my cloudflare-worker.js to serve a paths array of ["*"] in the AASA file, so I believe the links themselves should be valid. Technical Details &amp;amp; Error Logs In the console, I am consistently seeing the following error message: Cannot issue sandbox extension for URL:https://www.strike-force.app/invite?token=7EF1E439-090B-4DF2-BE64-9904F50A3F8B Received port for identifier response: &amp;lt;(null)&amp;gt; with error:Error Domain=RBSServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "Client not entitled" UserInfo={RBSEntitlement=com.apple.runningboard.process-state, NSLocalizedFailureReason=Client not entitled, RBSPermanent=false} elapsedCPUTimeForFrontBoard couldn't generate a task port This error appears to be related to entitlements and process state, but I am not sure if it's the root cause of the Universal Link issue or a separate problem. The 'Client not entitled' error on line 3 has had me chasing down entitlements issues. But, I've added the Associated Domains entitlement with the proper applink URLs and verified this in my Developer Portal. I've regenerated my provisioning profile, manually installed it, and selected/de-selected Automatically Manage Signing. As well I've verified my AASA file and it's correctly being served via HTTPS and returning a 200. curl -i https://strike-force.app/.well-known/apple-app-site-association curl -i https://www.strike-force.app/.well-known/apple-app-site-association I am looking for guidance on why the friend request flow is not being triggered after a successful deep-link and how I can fix the related error. Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

This issue keeps cropping up on the forums and so I decided to write up a single post with all the details. If you have questions or comments: If you were referred here from an existing thread, reply on that thread. If not, feel free to start a new thread. Use whatever topic and subtopic is appropriate for your question, but also add the Entitlements tag so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Determining if an entitlement is real In recent months there’s been a spate of forums threads involving ‘hallucinated’ entitlements. This typically pans out as follows: The developer, or an agent working on behalf of the developer, changes their .entitlements file to claim an entitlement that’s not real. That is, the entitlement key is a value that is not, and never has been, supported in any way. Xcode’s code signing machinery tries to find or create a provisioning profile to authorise this claim. That’s impossible, because the entitlement isn’t a real entitlement. Xcode reports this as a code signing error. The developer misinterprets that error [1] in one of two ways: As a generic Xcode code signing failure, and so they start a forums thread asking about how to fix that problem. As an indication that the entitlement is managed — that is, requires authorisation from Apple to use — and so they start a forums thread asking how to request such authorisation. The fundamental problem is step 1. Once you start claiming entitlements that aren’t real, you’re on a path to confusion. Note If you’re curious about how provisioning profiles authorise entitlement claims, read TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. There are a couple of ways to check whether an entitlement is real. My preferred option is to create a new test project and use Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor to add the corresponding capability to it. Then look at what Xcode did. You might find that Xcode claimed a different entitlement, or added an Info.plist key, or did nothing at all. IMPORTANT If you can’t find the correct capability in the Signing & Capabilities editor, it’s likely that this feature is available to all apps, that is, it’s not gated by an entitlement or anything else. Another thing you can do is search the documentation. The vast majority of real entitlements are documented in Bundle Resources > Entitlements. IMPORTANT When you search for documentation, focus on the Apple documentation. If, for example, you search the Apple Developer Forums, you might be mislead by other folks who are similarly confused. If you find that you’re mistakenly trying to claim a hallucinated entitlement, the fix is trivial: Remove it from your .entitlements file so that your app starts to build again. Then add the capability using Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor. This will do the right thing. If you continue to have problems, feel free to ask for help here on the forums. See the top of this post for advice on how to do that. [1] It’d be nice if the Xcode errors were more clear in this case (r. 155327166). Commonly Hallucinated Entitlements This section lists some of the more commonly hallucinated entitlements: com.apple.developer.push-notifications — The correct entitlement is aps-environment (com.apple.developer.aps-environment on macOS), documented here. There’s also the remote-notification value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase — There’s no entitlement for in-app purchase. Rather, in-app purchase is available to all apps with an explicit App ID (as opposed to a wildcard App ID). com.apple.InAppPurchase — Likewise. com.apple.developer.app-groups — The correct entitlement is com.apple.security.application-groups, documented here. And if you’re working on the Mac, see App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony. com.apple.developer.background-modes — Background modes are controlled by the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist, documented here. UIBackgroundModes — See the previous point. com.apple.developer.voip-push-notification — There’s no entitlement for this. VoIP is gated by the voip value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.family-controls.user-authorization — The correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.family-controls, documented here. IMPORTANT As explained in the docs, this entitlement is available to all developers during development but you must request authorisation for distribution. com.apple.developer.device-activity — The DeviceActivity framework has the same restrictions as Family Controls. com.apple.developer.managed-settings — If you’re trying to use the ManagedSettings framework, that has the same restrictions as Family Controls. If you’re trying to use the ManagedApp framework, that’s not gated by an entitlement. com.apple.developer.callkit.call-directory — There’s no entitlement for the Call Directory app extension feature. com.apple.developer.nearby-interaction — There’s no entitlement for the Nearby interaction framework. com.apple.developer.secure-enclave — On iOS and its child platforms, there’s no entitlement required to use the Secure Enclave. For macOS specifically, any program that has access to the data protection keychain also has access to the Secure Enclave [1]. See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about the data protection keychain. com.apple.developer.networking.configuration — If you’re trying to configure the Wi-Fi network on iOS, the correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotConfiguration, documented here. [1] While technically these are different features, they are closely associated and it turns out that, if you have access to the data protection keychain, you also have access to the SE. Revision History 2025-09-05 Added com.apple.developer.device-activity. 2025-09-02 First posted.

Hello, I am trying to utilize the Critical Messaging API to allow my user to message 1 or multiple pre registered contacts automatically. An issue I am having with this in testing is that when the application attempts to fire off texts to the phone numbers the success rate changes from trial to trial, with no variable changing. Sometimes I can send a Critical Message to multiple phone numbers in rapid succession, sometimes the message is only sent to 1 contact, and sometimes I get no successes. Each failure always returns the MSCriticalMessaging.notSupported error. The API documentation states, "The send(_:to:) method only works if the app is backgrounded, if it’s called from foreground the framework returns a MSCriticalMessagingError.notSupported error." If my app is always backgrounded in these tests, what other issues may cause this notSupported error return, and why does the outcomes success rate vary?

I have an app with lots of networking calls that are currently done through URLSession. We would like to implement the new carried constrained entitlements and begin moving data through the ultra constrained network path for core features of our application. I have successfully implemented the NWPathMonitor to identify when the current network path is ultra constrained and I have been consistently on a physical device in a real world environment. I'm aware that we will not be able to use URLSession to do this from other posts in this forum like this one. Because of this problem with URLSession I am attempting to fallback to using NWConnection when the current path is ultra constrained. I have setup a NWConnection with the NWParameters.allowUltraConstrainedPaths set to true. The request works perfectly when connected to wifi or cellular. However, it does not work at all when the current path is ultra constrained. When attempting this request through my NWConnection I receive an error that says: The operation couldn’t be completed. (Network.NWError error 50 - Network is down) Is this expected? I have confirmed my physical device is connecting to carrier provided satellite and I have been able to load data in other ios apps from Apple like the music app while on this carrier constrained connection. If this is not the correct way to move data when the path is ultra constrained what is the correct way?

I’m creating my first DriverKit extension and I ran into an entitlement issue when trying to load my driver. Error 0x0 8397 7 taskgated-helper: (ConfigurationProfiles) [com.apple.ManagedClient:ProvisioningProfiles] App.Dext: Unsatisfied entitlements: com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb I have already registered the entitlement com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb with my vendor ID in the Apple Developer portal. However, when I download the provisioning profile, it doesn’t include the idVendor value. Screenshot from the developer portal (provisioning profile without idVendor) ? <key>com.apple.developer.driverkit.transport.usb</key> <array> <dict> <key>idVendor</key> <integer>1356</integer> </dict> </array> -Is this error caused by me registering the vendor ID incorrectly? -Or is there an issue with how the entitlement is reflected in the provisioning profile? Any guidance would be appreciated.

I've been trying to understand what kind of UX is available if my app is using the default-dialer capability. I have found https://developer.apple.com/documentation/livecommunicationkit/preparing-your-app-to-be-the-default-dialer-app and I am in the EU. On android I built the UX I want and it's quite neat, so now I'm trying to work. out what I can get on iOS. Because the product is kind of worthless with just android. I have built a simple dialer ux with a numberpad, contact lookup etc. Then when the user presses the Call button does it have to pop up the system prompt "Call number"? Does it have to swap over to the system ui for the actual call? So there's no way to show information about the call, during the call? Or am I using the frameworks incorrectly? I am very new to iOS development. TrueCaller and others show validation, but as I understand it they pre-fetch all the data, I can't do that.

Hi guys, Is there any good up-to-date tutorial about publishing a Python based app on Apple Store? Now, I have developed a standalone Python app from PyCharm, and it's using Pyside6 for UI and some major Python libraries. It's a productivity app with a little A.I. features. I used PyInstaller to prepare the app. Currently, I am stuck at the stage of codesign and Apple Review process, because I am manually doing codesign and building the package from command-line. Without using Xcode, things can get messy or miss easily. It would be nice to follow a up-to-date tutorial about how to complete the codesign and Apple Review process for a Python based app. For example, what to do, how to do, what to be careful during the Apple Review process, etc. Thanks!

We have received some information that with the release of iOS 18, there have been notable changes in how this API behaves, can apple team shed some light on this? on ios 17 this worked without much issues, what has changed on ios 18?

Hi, I have a .NET MAUI app which I've added subscriptions to using the Plugin.InAppBilling nuget package. When I tested on TestFlight I got an almost immediate crash. After doing some research I followed advice to add an Entitlements.plist file to Platforms &gt; iOS with the following entry: com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase The distribution provisioning profile I'm using to sign my app has the App ID set to an Identifier which has "In-App Purchase" ticked, but greyed out in it's "Capabilities" section on https://developer.apple.com/. I'm not sure why it's ticked and greyed out, but I assume that means that "In-App Purchase" is enabled. The app runs file locally but when I create an IPA file and add it to Transporter for upload to App Store Connect I get the following error: "Validation failed (409) Invalid Code Signing Entitlements. Your application bundle's signature contains code signing entitlements that are not supported on iOS. Specifically, key 'com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase' in 'Payload/[Removed].app/[Removed]' is not supported. (ID: [Removed])". Here is the structure of my csproj code for creating a IPA file for iOS: The command I use: dotnet publish [Removed]/app.csproj -f:net9.0-ios -c:Release ^ /p:PlatformTarget=Arm64 ^ /p:RuntimeIdentifier=ios-arm64 ^ /p:ServerAddress=[Removed] ^ /p:ServerUser=[Removed] ^ /p:ServerPassword=[Removed] ^ /p:ArchiveOnBuild=true ^ /p:BuildIpa=true I'm stuck trying to figure this out. If you could please point out any issues with what I'm doing or if you have any suggestions to resolve the problem I would very much appreciate it. Thanks, Ben

Hi everyone and Apple Team, please help me to solve the problem with transferring a macOS app built by Electron. I didn't change any options related to sandbox or app groups at all; I'm just using default settings. My app doesn't have any data with other apps. It seems like a huge challenge, and I still haven't solved it after three months. Thanks for your advice.

Hi Apple Developer Community, I'm experiencing an issue with Family Controls entitlements for my iOS app that I'd like to discuss and see if others have encountered similar problems. Background: My app (BrightStart) uses Family Controls to help users build healthy morning routines by temporarily blocking distracting apps until they complete a sunlight exposure session. The core functionality relies on automatic time-based blocking (e.g., block social media apps from 6-8am daily). The Problem: I have Family Controls working perfectly in development builds, but I'm blocked from distributing via TestFlight due to entitlement issues with my Device Activity Monitor extension. Technical Details: Main app bundle ID: app.brightstart.app ✅ Has both "Family Controls (Development)" and "Family Controls (Distribution)" options available Extension bundle ID: app.brightstart.app.BrightStartMonitorExtension ❌ Only shows "Family Controls (Development)" - no Distribution option Error when archiving for TestFlight: ❌ Provisioning profile failed qualification Profile doesn't support Family Controls (Development). Family Controls (Development) feature is for development only. Please use Family Controls (Distribution) for distribution. Impact: Cannot upload to TestFlight for beta testing Native FamilyActivityPicker falls back to mock UI in distributed builds Automatic scheduled app blocking (via DeviceActivityMonitor) doesn't function in production Questions for the community: Has anyone successfully gotten "Family Controls (Distribution)" enabled for a Device Activity Monitor extension? Is this a known limitation, or should I expect this option to be available? Are there alternative approaches for time-based automatic app blocking that work in distribution builds? Should I contact Apple Support directly about enabling this entitlement for the extension? Btw, Cursor wrote this summary above, so it could be just hallucinating the issue? Would really appreciate anyone's thoughts here.

Hi, Our App relies on a keychain to store certificates and key-value pairs. However, when we upgraded from an older XCode 15.2 (1 year old) app version to a newer version XCode 16.2 (with identical keychain-groups entitlement), we found that the newer ipa cannot see the older keychain group anymore... We tried Testflight builds, but limited to only generating newer versions, we tried using the older App's code, cast as a newer App version, and then upgraded to the newer code (with an even newer app version!). Surprisingly we were able to see the older keychain group. So it seems that there's something different between the packaging/profile of the older (1 year) and newer (current) App versions that seems to cause the new version to not see the old keychainGroup... Any ideas?

Hi Apple team, I'm experiencing a persistent issue with writing to UserDefaults from a widget extension on iOS. Here's the situation: I've set up an App Group: group.test.blah The main app has the correct entitlement and can read/write from UserDefaults(suiteName:) using this group successfully. I can read the value written by the app from the widget (e.g., "testFromApp": "hiFromApp"). The widget extension has the same App Group enabled under Signing &amp; Capabilities. The provisioning profile reflects the App Group and the build installs successfully on a real device. The suite name is correct and matches across both targets. I’ve confirmed via FileManager.default.containerURL(...) that the app group container resolves properly. When I try to write from the widget extension like this let sharedDefaults = UserDefaults(suiteName: "group.test.blah") sharedDefaults?.set("hiFromWidget", forKey: "testFromWidget") ...I get this error in the console: Couldn't write values for keys ( testFromWidget ) in CFPrefsPlistSource&lt;0x1140d2880&gt; (Domain: group.test.blah, User: kCFPreferencesCurrentUser, ByHost: No, Container: (null), Contents Need Refresh: No): setting preferences outside an application's container requires user-preference-write or file-write-data sandbox access Questions: What could still cause the widget extension to lack write access to the app group container, even though it reads just fine? Are there any internal sandboxing nuances or timing-related issues specific to Live Activity widgets that could explain this? Is this a known limitation or platform issue?

I already waited 4 weeks to get family control entitlement for my bundle ID : com.company.my-cool-app While trying to distribute the app, Its forcing me to have provisioning profile for com.company.my-cool-app.ReportExtension and when I create the provisioning profile it says : doesn't include the com.apple.developer.family-controls entitlement.

Hello Apple support, A few days ago, I received an e-mail granting the entitlement for Critical Alerts to my app VIAWEB Mobile, bundle ID br.com.viawebsystem.VIAWEBservice . This was my second attempt: in the first time I requested the entitlement for all our apps, but it was denied. This time I requested for just our main app, and now it was approved. I have just followed several tutorials and instructions available on the Internet, but I couldn't enable this capability in my app. What I tried and where I stopped: In my Xcode 16.4, target "VIAWEB Mobile", Signing & Capabilities, All: unchecked the Automatic manage signing and checked again, selected the correct Team. In the iOS section, Xcode Managed Profile, click in the little "i" and there is no Critical Alerts in the Capabilities list, nor com.apple.developer.usernotifications.critical-alerts in the Entitlements list. And so, there is no Critical Alerts in the "+ Capability" window. If I go to Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Identifiers, and click to edit my App ID Configuration, there is no Critical Alerts to enable in the Capabilities list. In Capability Requests, I just see the plus sign next to Critical Alerts (to make an additional request), and the status Approved when I click on View Requests (2). Can you provide me with updated instructions on how I can enable this entitlement for my app? Thank you! Best regards, The VIAWEB Developer Team.