app-launch

app-launch is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills. It costs 85 tokens per session (3,556 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

An eight-week plan for releasing a new iOS or macOS app, or a major update. It covers preparation before launch and a phased release after launch.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to create a launch countdown, plan TestFlight testing, prepare a Product Hunt or press launch, and track launch-day work.
Why use it?
It organizes positioning, store materials, testing, release decisions, and follow-up so launch tasks are not missed.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Part of the apple-dev-skills plugin — 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents shipped together

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/app-launch
Any agent
npx skills add markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills --skill app-launch
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Or install apple-dev-skills, the plugin that ships this one along with the rest of its 62 skills, 25 commands, 7 agents.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for app-launch

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/app-launch.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/app-launch)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/app-launch"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills/app-launch.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 85 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,556 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00085 $0.03556
Opus 5 $0.00043 $0.01778
Sonnet 5 $0.00017 $0.00711
Haiku 4.5 $0.00009 $0.00356

Measured 4d ago against content hash efaebe1c6a89, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

app-launch scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

platforms/claude/skills/app-launch/SKILL.md · 381 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 381 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

App Launch

Ship a new app or major version with a disciplined 8-week countdown — from final positioning to post-launch phased rollout.

This skill owns the end-to-end launch process. It delegates asset work to app-brand-identity, listing copy to asc-aso, submission mechanics to asc-submission, risk checks to submission-preflight, pricing to app-store-pricing, featuring pursuit to app-store-featured, build health to asc-build-check, and paid acquisition to apple-search-ads.


The 8-Week Launch Countdown

Week 8 — Lock Positioning

Goal: Nail the single sentence that explains why your app exists.

  • Write the positioning statement: "For [audience] who [need], [App] is the [category] that [key differentiator]. Unlike [alternatives], we [unique proof point]."
  • Confirm your monetization model and price tier — see app-store-pricing
  • Define the one launch metric that declares success (downloads, revenue, rating count)
  • Identify your 3–5 target keywords (seed for asc-aso later)
  • Decide your release type: full release or phased? (See Release Strategy)

Week 7 — Brand and Store Assets

Goal: Hand off all visual deliverables so nothing blocks the listing later.

  • App icon finalized at 1024×1024 px — hand off to app-brand-identity
  • Screenshots designed for every required device size (iPhone 6.9", 6.5", iPad 13")
  • App Preview video scripted and recorded (optional but strongly recommended for featuring)
  • Feature graphic / promotional image ready
  • Press kit: icon (1024px), screenshots (3 hero), brief (150 words), founder photo

Screenshots convert. Spend disproportionate time here. Lead with the emotional outcome, not the interface. Show text large enough to read on a phone-sized thumbnail in search results.


Week 6 — TestFlight Beta

Goal: Real signal from real people before GA.

Set up the beta group via ASC MCP
1. asc_list_apps          → get your app ID
2. asc_create_beta_group  → create "External Beta – Week 6" (external, requires review)
3. asc_set_beta_notes     → set "What to Test" focus areas
4. asc_invite_beta_tester → add testers by email (up to 10,000 external)

Read the full file on GitHub · 381 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 381 lines · 85 tokens per session scan A efaebe1c6a89

Subscribe to this mod's changes

app-launch is a skill published in the GitHub repository markdavidgan/apple-dev-skills (5 stars, last pushed 5d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 85 tokens to every session and 3,556 once invoked, about $0.0004 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-31.

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