Provisioning Profile

A provisioning profile is a signed file from Apple that ties three things together: an app's bundle ID, the certificates allowed to sign it, and the distribution channel it's approved for. Mac App Store submissions must embed one; without it, uploads are rejected before review even starts.

Profiles are minted in App Store Connect (or via its API) and expire, which makes them a recurring source of broken release pipelines rather than a one-time setup step. They also have to match the exact entitlements your app declares, so a mismatch between profile, certificate, and entitlements is the classic three-way failure that stalls first submissions.

Direct-distribution Mac apps (a DMG download from your site) don't use provisioning profiles; they rely on Developer ID code signing plus notarization instead. The profile requirement is specific to store distribution.

Deskifier generates and embeds the provisioning profile automatically when building Mac App Store packages, using your App Store Connect credentials, so the certificate-profile-entitlements triangle is assembled for you.