Incrementing Build Numbers as a service

How it works

Simply make a request to https://increment.build/ followed by an identifier of your choice. It will return 1 and increment that number every subsequent request.

❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app
1
❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app
2
❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app
3

Switch to a different identifier to get a new counter starting from 0.

❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app
4
❯ curl https://increment.build/my-fancy-app
1

Save the result into an environment variable and use it to build your product.

❯ export BUILD = $(curl https://increment.build/my-fancy-app)
❯ echo $BUILD
2

Why do I need this?

If you give every build that you make it's own build number, you can easily figure out which build caused trouble if problems arise.
Automatically incrementing the build number requires you to first figure out what is the highest build number out there, which might not be trivial.
As an iOS or Android developer, you are required to increase the build number for each binary that you upload. If you forget it, the binary will be rejected and you will have to compile and upload again.
You want to use continuous integration and don't want to commit version code increases.

Pricing

$0/month forever!

This service is brought to you for free by Jonny Burger. As a return, let me advertise two things really quick! 😊

Check out my app AnySticker, which allows you to create and publish WhatsApp and Instagram stickers for your brand!
Hire me and and a team of experts to build your MVP in 100 days: We are Axelra.

FAQ

How do I increment the build number of an Xcode project?
Move into the folder where your Info.plist is and execute this command:
❯ /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c "Set :CFBundleVersion $(curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app)" Info.plist
How do I increment the version code of an Android project?
In your build.gradle, make the versionCode variable:
versionCode project.hasProperty('versionCode') ? project.property('versionCode') as int : 1
then pass the version code like this:
❯ ./gradlew assembleRelease -PversionCode=$(curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app)
How do I increment the version codes of an Expo project?
This will increment both iOS build number and Android version code based on separate counters!
❯ node -e "a=require('./app.json');a.expo.ios.buildNumber=String($(curl https://increment.build/my-app-ios));a.expo.android.versionCode=$(curl https://increment.build/my-app-android);require('fs').writeFileSync('app.json', JSON.stringify(a, null, 2))"

How do I increment the build number using Fastlane?
For iOS projects:

increment_build_number(
  xcodeproj: './ios/MyAwesomeApp.xcodeproj',
  build_number: sh('curl -s https://increment.build/my-awesome-app-ios')
)

For Android projects:

gradle(task: 'assemble', build_type: 'Release', properties: {
  versionCode: sh('curl -s https://increment.build/my-awesome-app-android')
})

My current build number is already at 2498. How can I make increment.build start from this number?
There is another endpoint for this. Simply append /set/{your_number} and your counter will jump to this number.
❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app/set/2498
How can I get the current build number without incrementing it?
You can simply append /get to get the current build number without incrementing it. Useful for building counters!
❯ curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app/get
My cURL also prints the progress, not just the build number!
Try to add the -s flag to prevent progress being printed:
❯ curl -s https://increment.build/
There is no authentication! How do I prevent others from incrementing my build number?
Just use an identifier that is really hard to guess! What about increment.build/e447dacc-8323-4e29-aeeb-4bbbbf9b2628? No one will come up with that.
I incremented by accident. Can I go back?
You cannot decrease the counter. I recommend that you just don't care - skipping build numbers is not the end of the world. If you really want to go back, just use a new identifier.
I don't trust you, you will one day serve me malicious code instead of build numbers!
Good for you, the saying is that trust is good, control is better. You can add a check that the response that you get from increment.build is purely numeric.
```
export BUILD = $(curl https://increment.build/my-awesome-app)
re='^[0-9]+$'
    if ! [[ $BUILD =~ $re ]] ; then
    echo "error: Not a number" >&2; exit 1
fi
```
I don't want to rely on a third-party service for this!
No problem, this is an open source project and you can host it yourself. Check out the GitHub repo here.