App Friends

Trade installs with apps that aren't your competition.

App Friends is a cross-promotion network and SDK for app developers. Register your apps, drop in the SDK, and show promos for other apps inside yours — while those apps show yours. Pair up with non-competing apps for free (view-for-view), or pay for sponsored placement in apps you choose.

   Your app  ──shows──▶  Friend's app
   Your app  ◀──shows──  Friend's app

The SDK is called with the current app's bundle id. The network returns every other app you're allowed to promote — never your own — and renders them as a full-screen takeover or a popup card. You get the installs; you keep the user.

What's in here

app-friends/
├── web/                 Next.js 16 SaaS — marketing, docs, dashboard, API
├── sdks/
│   ├── swift/           AppFriends — Swift Package (SwiftUI), iOS 16+
│   └── react-native/    @parra/app-friends — RN / Expo
└── docs/                Product plan, brand brief, data model

The product, in three parts

1. Dashboard (web/app/dashboard) — register apps, connect App Store Connect, mint API keys, find friends, run/approve sponsored campaigns, watch analytics, manage billing and your team.
2. API (web/app/api/v1) — the network. The SDK hits GET /api/v1/sdk/promotions?bundleId=… with an API key and gets back the apps to show. Events (impressions / taps / installs) flow back to POST /api/v1/sdk/events.
3. SDKs (sdks/) — drop-in views for iOS (SwiftUI) and React Native that fetch promotions, render the popup or full-screen unit, open the App Store, and report events.

Two ways to promote

• View-for-view (free). Form a pairing with an app that doesn't compete with yours. You show theirs, they show yours. The network keeps it balanced.
• Sponsored (paid). Run a campaign to appear in apps you target. Each publisher approves which advertisers can run in their app. CPI or CPM.

Quick start

cd web
pnpm install
pnpm dev          # docker up → schema sync → seed → servers

pnpm dev runs scripts/dev.sh: it brings up Postgres + MailHog, syncs the schema, seeds a sample tenant (see below), then starts the web app and Prisma Studio. Use pnpm dev:force to wipe the database and reseed from scratch, or pnpm dev --no-seed to skip seeding.

• Web / dashboard: http://localhost:3050
• MailHog inbox: http://localhost:8055
• Prisma Studio: http://localhost:5575

Sample tenant

The seed (scripts/seed.ts) creates a workspace you own — Nimbus Labs (PRO) with two apps — plus a few "friend" tenants that supply network inventory (an active pairing, a pending pairing request, and an approved sponsored campaign), and a couple weeks of analytics.

• Sign in: open http://localhost:3050/auth/signin, enter demo@appfriends.dev, then click the magic link in MailHog. You land in the Nimbus Labs workspace.

• SDK key: the sample tenant ships a stable publishable key, afp_dev_sample_publishable_key_00000001. Try it:

  curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer afp_dev_sample_publishable_key_00000001' \
    'http://localhost:3050/api/v1/sdk/promotions?bundleId=com.nimbuslabs.weather'

The marketing site and dashboard shell render with just DATABASE_URL and AUTH_SECRET. Everything else (STRIPE_*, App Store Connect, Upstash, Resend) unlocks progressively. See web/.env.example.

SDKs

• iOS: sdks/swift/README.md — runnable example in sdks/swift/Example
• React Native: sdks/react-native/README.md — runnable example in sdks/react-native/example

Both examples pose as the seeded Nimbus Weather app and talk to your local server, so they render the friends the seed sets up. Start pnpm dev first.

Docs

Architecture and data model: docs/PLAN.md. Brand and voice: docs/BRAND.md. Developer-facing docs render in-app at /docs.

Stack

Next.js 16 · React 19 · TypeScript 5 · Prisma 7 + PostgreSQL 16 · NextAuth 5 · Tailwind 4 · Stripe · Resend + MailHog · Upstash (rate-limit) · Swift 6 / SwiftUI · React Native. pnpm.