Mac app distribution

Push a tag.
Ship a Mac app.

Shipcast turns a git tag into a signed, notarized, auto-updating, brew-installable Mac app — then hosts the update feed so every copy stays current. Your certificates never leave your machine.

Start shipping — free during beta

$brew install mafex11/tap/shipcast

nimbus — shipcast — 80×24

➜~/nimbusshipcast release

01✓resolvev1.4.0 from git tag

02✓buildNimbus.app · arm64

03✓signDeveloper ID · hardened runtime

04✓notarizestapled by Apple

05✓packageNimbus-1.4.0.dmg · zip

06✓releaseGitHub · cask PR opened

07✓appcastsigned + published

appcast live · updates.shipcast.devmafex.com/you/nimbus

Why it exists

Shipping a Mac app is the part nobody tells you about.

You can build the app. Then comes code signing, hardened runtime, notarization, stapling, Gatekeeper, a Sparkle appcast, a Homebrew cask — and the dreaded “app is damaged and can’t be opened.”

Microsoft App Center hosted Sparkle feeds for years, then shut it down with nothing to replace it. Shipcast is that missing piece: the CLI does the signing dance on your machine, and the hosted feed keeps every installed copy updating itself.

What you get

Sign & notarize

Developer ID signing, hardened runtime, notarization, and stapling — or ad-hoc signing when you don't have an Apple account yet. Your certificates never leave your machine.

A hosted update feed

Shipcast hosts your Sparkle appcast at a stable URL. Ship a new tag and every installed copy of your app sees the update — no server to run, no App Center to replace.

Homebrew, automatically

Every release generates a Homebrew cask and opens the pull request for you. Your users install and update with brew, and the "app is damaged" gatekeeper prompt is handled.

One command, or your CI

Run the whole pipeline locally with shipcast release, or drop the GitHub Action into your repo and let a pushed tag do it. Same result either way.

Pricing

The CLI is free forever. The hosting is free during beta.

Shipcast CLI — the entire build, sign, notarize, package, and cask pipeline is open source under MIT. It always will be. Self-host your appcast and you never pay a cent.

Hosted feed — the update URL and adoption dashboard are free while Shipcast is in beta. After that, roughly $9/month per app. You already pay Apple for the certificate; this is the part that puts the app in your users' hands.

Your next release could install with brew.