Words you will meet

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The guides and skills use these words. Each one gets one or two plain sentences. When a word has its own guide, the entry links to it.

Apple

• Apple Developer Program. The $99 a year membership you need to put an app on the App Store. See apple-developer.md.
• Apple Account. Your Apple login. Apple used to call it the Apple ID.
• Team ID. A 10-character code for your developer account. Builds, keys and Sign in with Apple all use it.
• Bundle identifier (bundle ID). The app’s unique name at Apple, for example com.example.myapp. You cannot change it after the first upload.
• App ID. The bundle ID registered with Apple, plus the features it may use, such as Sign in with Apple.
• Capability. A feature the app must ask Apple for, such as Sign in with Apple or push notifications. It is switched on for the App ID.
• Certificate and provisioning profile. Files that prove a build comes from you and may run on certain phones. EAS makes and stores them for you.
• App Store Connect. Apple’s website for your apps: the app record, builds, testers, prices, the store page and review. See app-store-connect-setup.md.
• App record. Your app’s entry in App Store Connect. You make it once, by hand, before the first upload.
• App Store Connect API key. A key that lets a script or a skill work in App Store Connect without your password. See app-store-connect-api-key.md.
• TestFlight. Apple’s app for test builds. Testers install your build before it is on the App Store.
• App Review. The check Apple runs before an app or an update goes live. It can take hours or days, and it can reject the app with a guideline number.
• Version and build number. The version (1.2.0) is what users see. The build number must go up with every upload, even for the same version.
• App Privacy. Your answers in App Store Connect about the data the app collects. They show on the store page and must match your privacy policy.
• Privacy manifest. A file inside the app that lists the data it collects and the system features it uses for that. Uploads without one can fail.
• Export compliance. Apple’s question about encryption. Most apps answer it once in the app config.
• Paid Apps agreement. The contract, tax and bank details you must finish in App Store Connect before you can sell anything.

Expo and the app

• Expo. The toolkit most React Native apps are built with. See expo-app.md.
• EAS. Expo Application Services: EAS Build makes the app, EAS Submit uploads it to Apple. See expo-eas.md.
• Local build. An EAS build that runs on your own Mac with eas build --local. It is free and uses no build credits.
• Build profile. A named set of build settings in eas.json, usually development, preview and production.
• Expo Go and development build. Expo Go is a ready-made app that runs your code, but only with the native modules it ships with. A development build is your own app with your own native modules. Real apps need the second one.
• Native rebuild. A new build of the app itself, needed after you add a native module or change the app config. A JavaScript change does not need one.
• Metro. The server on your Mac that sends your JavaScript to the app while you develop.
• Simulator. An iPhone that runs on your Mac, part of Xcode. See xcode.md.
• Preview build (ad hoc). A build that installs straight onto a few phones you registered, without TestFlight.
• EXPO_PUBLIC_*. Settings built into the app, such as the API URL. Anyone can read them, so they are never secret.

The box and the web

• The box. The one machine that runs your backend: a mini PC at home or a small VPS.
• VPS. A virtual private server: a small computer you rent in a data centre. See vps.md.
• SSH and SSH key. SSH is how your Mac logs in to the box. The key is a file that replaces a password.
• Docker and Compose. Docker runs each service in its own container. Compose starts a group of containers from one file.
• Traefik. The program on the box that sends each hostname to the right container.
• DNS record. An entry that tells the internet where a name like api.example.com goes. A CNAME points at another name. An A record points at an IP address.
• Cloudflare Tunnel. A connection from the box out to Cloudflare. Visitors reach the box through it, so the box needs no open ports. See cloudflare.md.
• Proxied. A DNS record that goes through Cloudflare, so the box’s real address stays hidden.
• Tailscale. A private network for your own devices, so you can reach the box from your phone anywhere. See remote-access.md.
• API. Your backend: the code the app calls over HTTPS. See backend.md.
• Postgres. The database the backend uses.
• Migration. A step that changes the database structure, such as adding a column. It runs in order, once.
• Staging. A second copy of the backend, with its own database, for testing a change before users see it.
• Backup. A copy of the database kept off the box. It only counts when you have restored one once.
• Landing page. The app’s website. It holds the privacy policy and the support page Apple asks for. See privacy-and-support-pages.md.

Money

• RevenueCat. A service that handles subscriptions and purchases for you. See revenuecat.md.
• Offering and entitlement. In RevenueCat, an offering is what the paywall shows. An entitlement is what the user gets after paying, such as “pro”.
• Paywall. The screen that asks the user to pay.

Secrets and AI

• Secret. Anything that grants access or costs money, such as an API key or a password. See secrets.md.
• Reference. A pointer to a secret, such as KIE_AI_API_KEY or op://agent-secrets/kie/credential, instead of the secret itself.
• Service account. A login for a program, not a person. It can read only what you give it.
• LLM API key. The key your backend uses to call an AI model. See llm-api-key.md.

The kit

• Coding agent. The AI tool that works in your code, such as Claude Code, Codex or Cursor.
• Skill. A set of instructions your agent follows for one job, such as ship-ios:app-store-ready. It is a plain SKILL.md file.
• Plugin. A group of skills you install together in Claude Code, such as ship-ios.
• Marketplace. A list of plugins you add to Claude Code once, such as onebox.
• PLAN.md. The checklist the plan skill writes for your app. See an example.
• The onebox config. ~/.config/onebox/config.json, plus an optional .onebox.json in each project. It holds settings and secret references, never secret values.

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