feat(swiftpm): let autolinking plugins declare build-time script phases

[chrfalch]

Summary:

SwiftPM has no equivalent of CocoaPods' script_phase, so a framework that generates content at build time can't get one. The first casualty is expo-constants: nothing writes EXConstants.bundle/app.config, which shows up at runtime as "Unable to find the embedded app config".

This adds a 6th field to the SwiftPM autolinking plugin contract:

scriptPhases: [{
  id: 'expo-constants.app-config',   // stable: ledger key + deterministic UUID seed
  name: 'Generate Expo app.config',  // Xcode's display name
  script: '…',
  position: 'end',                   // 'end' (default) | 'beforeCompile'
  inputPaths: ['$(SRCROOT)/../app.json'],
  outputPaths: ['$(TARGET_BUILD_DIR)/…/EXConstants.bundle/app.config'],
  alwaysOutOfDate: true,
}]

The plugin returns data; RN validates it, records it to a .spm-plugin-script-phases.json sidecar (written even when empty, so removing a plugin clears stale entries), and spm add/update emits one PBXShellScriptBuildPhase per entry — tracked in .spm-injected.json by id, so update reconciles and deinit reverts.

Verified end to end by the Expo team

On a real Expo app, against a local cut of this branch. A position: 'end' phase lands last, after the JS bundle phase:

5. Resources
6. Bundle React Native code and images
7. [Expo Dev Launcher] Strip Local Network Keys for Release
8. Generate Expo app.config          ← last

BUILD SUCCEEDED, and EXConstants.bundle/app.config is written with sdkVersion: 56.0.0 — precisely the value whose absence caused the original bug. Red baseline confirmed first: before the declaration, the same app built with 0 script phase(s), an empty sidecar, and no EXConstants.bundle at all. They also independently confirmed deinit leaves zero residue, add is idempotent (same sha1 twice), and no phase duplicates.

Their side is expo/expo#47647.

Design decisions worth a reviewer's attention

• end appends at the true end of buildPhases, which is after the JS bundle phase — where expo-constants must write, since it targets $TARGET_BUILD_DIR. Anchoring relative to the Frameworks phase (the obvious-looking choice) lands it before the bundle phase, because real template order is Sources, Frameworks, Resources, Bundle React Native code and images.
• beforeCompile anchors after RN's own "Sync SPM Autolinking" phase, which must stay first since it regenerates autolinking — a plugin phase ahead of it would run against stale generated content. The anchor chains forward so declared order survives. Position and relative order are re-derived every sync, so a phase dragged by hand in Xcode returns to its declared slot.
• Validation is fatal, matching flavoredFrameworks rather than the lenient watchPaths. A silently dropped phase means the content is never written and the app fails at runtime with no build-time signal — which is the bug being fixed.
• id is the ledger key and the UUID seed. The charset allows a scoped npm name (@expo/log-box) but excludes :, which separates the plugin:<id> seed. __proto__/constructor/prototype are rejected because plainObject['__proto__'] = v vanishes through JSON.stringify, which would record a phase that deinit could never remove.
• A plugin-supplied name reaches pbxproj comments, and those are scanned by single-line regexes. What lands in a comment is therefore normalized: a name containing */, { or , otherwise produced a brace-unbalanced project Xcode couldn't open, or an orphan phase deinit reported removing but didn't. The full name still goes verbatim into the name field Xcode displays. The same normalization now covers generated-source filenames, which had the identical hole.

Also fixed in passing

add → update → deinit did not restore project.pbxproj byte-for-byte, even with zero script phases: the second run's marker forgot what the first had created, leaving an empty packageReferences / packageProductDependencies and the generated .xcscheme behind. The created-record now carries forward and scheme.created is sticky. Two guards came with that, both tested: a created array field is removed only when it is empty after RN's own members come out (so a package a user added to it survives deinit), and the scheme is deleted only if it is still RN's own (so a scheme the user has taken over is left alone).

Changelog:

[Internal] [Added] - SwiftPM: autolinking plugins can declare build-time script phases via scriptPhases

Test Plan:

yarn jest packages/react-native/scripts → 853 tests, all green. The SwiftPM suite specifically went from 462 → 637 tests.

Written red first throughout. Coverage includes:

• one declared phase → exactly one PBXShellScriptBuildPhase, correct name/shellScript/serialized paths; alwaysOutOfDate emitted as unquoted 1 only when set
• end lands last; beforeCompile lands after the sync phase and before Sources; declared order preserved for multiple phases of each position and for a mix; a changed position is re-seated on the next sync
• add / update-in-place / remove keyed on id; unchanged re-sync byte-identical; deinit byte-identical with no orphan object or section
• a 17-row hostile-name matrix ({ } ( ) , ; = */ /* * /, unbalanced quote, tab, unicode, 300 chars, a name that normalizes to empty) × {balanced after add, byte-identical re-inject, clean deinit}
• scripts containing quotes, backslashes, newlines and $(VAR) round-trip through emission, refresh and deinit
• contract validation: 16 malformed-entry cases, duplicate id across plugins, reserved ids, scoped ids accepted, : rejected
• add → update → deinit byte-identity with zero phases and with two

Not covered by unit tests, deliberately: that end runs after the JS bundle phase. The plain-app.pbxproj fixture has no bundle phase, so it is unassertable here — this is disclosed in a comment at the test rather than papered over, and is exactly what the Expo verification above establishes.

Known limitation, not addressed here: against a project Xcode has previously saved, add → deinit → add is structurally identical (same UUIDs, same reference counts) but not byte-identical — Xcode writes multi-line dicts in sorted order, the injector writes single-line dicts in insertion order, which shows up as formatting churn in a committed project.pbxproj. Pre-existing for every object the injector emits, not specific to script phases, and filed separately.

Note on landing order

This touches generate-spm-xcodeproj.js and spm-pbxproj.js, which #57744 and #57756 also touch — including the same marker-write block. All three are cut independently from main; whichever lands first, I'll rebase the others. Happy to restack in whatever order is easiest to review.

[cipolleschi]

I think this is ok for now, but I believe we should investigate Swift plugins that can run before building, instead of injecting script phases inside the pbxproject directly.

[meta-codesync]

@cipolleschi has imported this pull request. If you are a Meta employee, you can view this in D114318236.

[chrfalch]

I think this is ok for now, but I believe we should investigate Swift plugins that can run before building, instead of injecting script phases inside the pbxproject directly.

Problem with plugin is that they're running in a sandbox with very limited permissions. They can write data in the build directory, everything else is read-only.

[meta-codesync]

@cipolleschi merged this pull request in 6ff47ef.