🚀 ReleasePilot — Deterministic orchestration of white-label app builds

ReleasePilot is an assisted release orchestrator that executes yarn commands in an organized, deterministic, and controlled manner, based on variables provided by the operator (platform, contractor, environment, and command).

Its primary goal is to standardize and automate the build, packaging, and delivery process of white-label applications, while respecting the specific differences between contractors, environments, and platforms — without sacrificing human control at critical steps.

ReleasePilot is intentionally designed to orchestrate commands, not to encapsulate low-level logic or highly specific operational flows. For this reason, granular commands, deep customizations, or platform-specific behaviors must live in dedicated build flows, which are then invoked by yarn.

The orchestrator’s responsibility is to order, coordinate, and operate these commands in a consistent, predictable, and auditable way. To enable this, the package.json must define script aliases that follow the ReleasePilot convention:

{platform}:{contractor}:{environment}:{command}

This allows yarn to act as the execution layer, while ReleasePilot acts as the orchestration layer.

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🎯 Purpose

ReleasePilot was created to solve a recurring problem in white-label ecosystems:

How can we execute multiple build commands in a consistent, predictable, and auditable way when each application varies by contractor, environment, and platform?

The answer is not blind automation — it is conscious orchestration.

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✨ Key Features

• 🎛️ Orchestration of yarn commands based on operational variables

• 📱 Multi-platform support (android, ios)

• 🏢 Automatic discovery of contractors via directory structure

• 🧪 Automatic discovery of environments per contractor

• ⚙️ Supported commands: add, build, deploy

• 🔁 “All” option available in every selection step

• ⏸️ Assisted execution with human checkpoints between:

  • Environments
  • Contractors

• 📌 Execution planning identical to the real execution order

• 📦 Final, traceable release summary

• 🧩 Simple, pythonic code with no external dependencies

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🧠 Operational Philosophy

ReleasePilot does not execute commands randomly.

It:

• Organizes
• Orders
• Operates

Each yarn command is executed within a well-defined context, ensuring that:

• Builds are not mixed across contractors
• Environments are strictly respected
• Artifacts can be safely retrieved between steps
• The operator has full visibility into what is being executed

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📂 Expected Project Structure

project-root/
├─ contractor/
│  ├─ quickup/
│  │  ├─ sandbox/
│  │  ├─ alfa/
│  │  └─ beta/
│  ├─ kompa/
│     ├─ sandbox/
│     ├─ beta/
│     └─ prod/

The project name is automatically inferred from the root directory name.

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🧾 Command Pattern

ReleasePilot executes commands following this convention:

yarn {platform}:{contractor}:{environment}:{command}

Example

yarn android:quickup:beta:build

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🚀 Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• Node.js + Yarn
• Git (optional, but recommended for traceability)

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🍎 macOS Installation (recommended)

On macOS, the recommended and reliable way to install ReleasePilot as a global CLI is using pipx. This avoids permission issues, conflicts with the system Python, and ensures proper isolation.

1️⃣ Install pipx

python3 -m pip install --user pipx
python3 -m pipx ensurepath

⚠️ After this step, close and reopen your terminal.

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2️⃣ Navigate to the project directory

cd release-pilot   # directory containing pyproject.toml

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3️⃣ Install ReleasePilot globally

pipx install .

The command will now be available globally as:

release-pilot

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▶️ Quick Test

release-pilot

If the interactive menu appears, the installation was successful ✅

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🔍 Optional Checks

which release-pilot
pipx list

Expected output (example):

~/.local/bin/release-pilot

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🧹 Updating ReleasePilot

After updating the code or version:

pipx reinstall release-pilot

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❌ Uninstalling

pipx uninstall release-pilot

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⚠️ Important Notes for macOS

• Do not use sudo pip install
• Do not use the system Python to install CLIs
• Do not manually copy binaries
• For Python CLI tools, pipx is always the correct choice

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🧠 Rule of Thumb

Python library → pip install Python CLI tool → pipx install

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📌 Execution Planning

Before executing any command, ReleasePilot displays the complete execution plan, in the exact order in which commands will run.

This eliminates ambiguity and ensures full predictability.

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✅ Final Release Summary

At the end of execution, ReleasePilot presents a consolidated summary including:

• 📁 Project
• 📦 Contractors
• 🌿 Git branch / version
• 🧪 Environments
• 📱 Platforms
• ⚙️ Total executed commands

This summary improves auditability, communication, and release traceability.

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🛡️ Ideal Use Cases

• White-label app builds
• Sandbox / alfa / beta / production environments
• Teams supporting multiple clients
• Sensitive or regulated releases
• Teams that require control + automation

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🔮 Future Enhancements

• --dry-run mode
• Non-interactive execution (--ci)
• Summary export (.txt / .md)
• Commit hash and SemVer tag support
• Slack / Jira / Discord / Telegram integrations
• Persistent execution logs

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📜 License

MIT License.

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👤 Author

André Argôlo CTO • Software Architect • DevOps

• 🌐 Website: https://argolo.dev
• 🐙 GitHub: @argolo

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🧭 About

André Argôlo is a software architect and technology leader with extensive experience in designing and operating mission-critical systems. His work focuses on building scalable platforms, improving developer experience, and creating pragmatic tooling that balances automation with human control — especially in regulated and high-responsibility environments.