App Store Preflight Skill

Run pre-submission checks on your iOS/macOS project to catch common App Store rejection patterns.

Prerequisites

• asc CLI — Install via Homebrew:

  brew install asc

  (App-Store-Connect-CLI)
• ASC CLI Skills — app-store-connect-cli-skills for

  asc

  usage patterns
• jq — Optional, but used by some JSON-inspection examples in the rule docs

Step 1: Identify App Type → Load Checklist

Determine which guidelines apply by loading the relevant checklist from

references/guidelines/by-app-type/

all_apps.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/all_apps.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/subscription_iap.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/social_ugc.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/kids.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/health_fitness.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/games.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/macos.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/ai_apps.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/crypto_finance.md

references/guidelines/by-app-type/vpn.md

Full guideline index:

references/guidelines/README.md

Step 2: Pull Metadata for Inspection

Pull the latest App Store metadata using the

asc

# Pull canonical metadata JSON for the version you want to review
asc metadata pull --app "<APP_ID>" --version "<VERSION>" --dir ./metadata

asc metadata pull

./metadata/app-info/*.json

./metadata/version/<VERSION>/*.json

Most rule examples below assume the canonical JSON layout written by

asc metadata pull

If you already have metadata in another layout (for example fastlane

metadata/

asc

Step 3: Run Rejection Rule Checks

For each category, load the relevant rule files from

references/rules/

references/rules/metadata/*.md

references/rules/subscription/*.md

references/rules/privacy/*.md

references/rules/design/*.md

references/rules/entitlements/*.md

Step 4: Report Findings

Produce a summary report using this template:

## Preflight Report

### ❌ Rejections Found (N)
- [GUIDELINE X.X.X] Description of issue
  - File: path/to/offending/file
  - Fix: What to do

### ⚠️ Warnings (N)
- [GUIDELINE X.X.X] Potential issue

### ✅ Passed (N)
- [Category] All checks passed

Order by severity: rejections first, then warnings, then passed.

Step 5: Autofix + Validate

Some issues can be auto-fixed:

• Competitor terms → Suggest replacement text with competitor names removed
• Metadata character limits → Show current vs. max length
• Missing links → Generate template ToS/PP URLs

After applying any auto-fix, re-run the affected checks to confirm the fix resolved the violation. Only mark as resolved once the re-scan passes.

For issues requiring manual intervention (screenshots, UI redesign), provide clear instructions but do not auto-fix.

Gotchas

• China storefront — Banned AI terms (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) are checked across ALL locales, not just

  zh-Hans

  . Apple checks every locale visible in the China storefront.
• Privacy manifests —

  PrivacyInfo.xcprivacy

  is required even if your app doesn't call Required Reason APIs directly. Third-party SDKs (Firebase, Amplitude, etc.) that use

  UserDefaults

  or

  NSFileManager

  trigger this requirement transitively.
• asc auth —

  asc metadata pull

  requires App Store Connect authentication. Run

  asc auth login

  first, or set

  ASC_KEY_ID

  ,

  ASC_ISSUER_ID

  , and one of

  ASC_PRIVATE_KEY_PATH

  /

  ASC_PRIVATE_KEY

  /

  ASC_PRIVATE_KEY_B64

  . If you're unsure what

  asc

  is picking up, run

  asc auth doctor

  .
• Subscription metadata — Apple requires ToS/PP links in BOTH the App Store description AND the in-app subscription purchase screen. Missing either one is a separate rejection.
• macOS entitlements — Apple will ask you to justify every temporary exception entitlement (

  com.apple.security.temporary-exception.*

  ). Remove entitlements you don't actively use.

Adding New Rules

Create a

.md

references/rules/

# Rule: [Short Title]
- **Guideline**: [Apple Guideline Number]
- **Severity**: REJECTION | WARNING
- **Category**: metadata | subscription | privacy | design | entitlements

## What to Check
## How to Detect
## Resolution
## Example Rejection