Xcode cloud, why not today?

Many of us have received an invitation to test Apple’s new product, XCode Cloud. Of course, this product is expected and we truly are in need of it. We have been waiting for a cloud-based CI solution in mobile development, for a long time.
I think that many of you have already tried XCode Cloud, and faced compilation errors and frequent problems with the repository.
It’s beta and it’s ok.

Benefits of the new service include:

1. Simplicity and tight integration in Xcode
2. Creating a continuous integration task occurs without leaving the XCode project and takes only a few minutes.
3. UI and Unit Tests. This can be very useful if there are a lot of tests or they run for a very long time so as not to take up the resources of the developer’s machine.

Today we want to share our thoughts, namely what is missing in XCode Cloud now, and why we will NOT use it when it is released:

1. Common mistakes during operation
   When compiling projects that are completely different in structure and content, errors often occur for an unknown reason, and the logs simply show “Unknown Error”. It is also not uncommon for processes to hang while remaining “in operation” for many hours in a row. Only forced cancellation of a running action helps.
2. Weak integration with third-party services.
   All workflow activities are tightly coupled to the Apple ecosystem. Unable to publish to third-party services (Firebase App Distribution, TestFairy, etc.). There is also no possibility of interaction with popular project management systems and error tracking (Jira, Trello).
   At the moment, the only option to work with an external service is to send notifications about the results of the work done to Slack.
3. Lack of automatic generation of Release Notes.
   In my opinion, this is a simple and very important function. When you make a release for the test 2 times a week, after a couple of months it becomes difficult (or even impossible) to find the right build without this data.
4. Lack of flexible workflow settings.
   For example, it is not possible to start the build process through an external signal (web-hook), or after the completion of another project.
5. Low work speed.
   Compiling and exporting large projects to TestFlight can take over an hour. A similar operation on a computer with an M1 processor fits perfectly in 10-15 minutes.

Let’s discuss – which CI features that XCode Cloud doesn’t have are important to you?