Tophat: Crafting a Delightful Mobile Developer Experience
Article Summary
Shopify doubled developer productivity by turning the most tedious part of mobile development into a one-click experience.
Shopify built Tophat, a macOS menu bar app that eliminates local compilation for code reviews. Instead of stashing changes and waiting for builds, developers can now test any PR on real or virtual devices with a single click by reusing CI artifacts from Google Cloud Storage.
Key Takeaways
- Daily usage doubled after shipping the redesigned experience
- Reuses CI builds from cloud storage, eliminating local compilation entirely
- Solved iOS real device testing with ios-deploy and automated signing
- Quick Launch feature grabs latest native code for React Native development
- Zero-config setup via Dev tool makes it available to all mobile developers
Critical Insight
By making manual testing delightful instead of tedious, Shopify cut feedback loops and increased testing frequency across their mobile organization.
