[Optional] Deploy your IWA

Now that you’ve developed and tested your IWA, it’s time to deploy it to production! Unlike normal websites, you’re not going to push your compiled code to a server and have a user go to a domain; instead, you’re going to publish the new version’s signed web bundle (.swbn) to the web, update your Web Application Update Manifest, and have a Chrome Enterprise administrator install it for their users from the Admin panel.

Create a Web Application Update Manifest

Because IWAs don’t run from a server, and instead each version is individually bundled, you need a mechanism to tell clients (a browser, the Admin panel, etc…) where each version of it lives. To do this, you’ll need to add an update_manifest_url field to your Web App Manifest for your IWA. This will point to a JSON file on a server that includes a list of each version of your IWA and the URL to download the .swbn for that version. The client will then try to grab the latest version of your IWA and install it, giving nearly seamless updates that can be performed in the background and be available once a user closes and restarts your IWA.

You can also include channels in each entry, letting clients choose which channel a user should be on, with default being the default channel. This will let you deploy, for example, canary, dev, beta, and stable versions like Chrome does, long-term stable versions per major app version number, or any other combination of release channels you may want.

{
  "versions": [
    {
      "version": "5.2.17",
      "src": "https://cdn.example.com/app-package-5.2.17.swbn",
      "channels": ["5-lts", "default"]
    },
    {
      "version": "5.3.0",
      "src": "v5.3.0/package.swbn",
      "channels": ["default"]
    },
    {
      "version": "5.3.1",
      "src": "v5.3.1/package.swbn",
      "channels": ["next"]
    },
  ]
}

Install from the Admin panel

With your IWA packages and Web Application Update Manifest deployed, it’s time to get them to your user! Before you get started, you’ll need two things: your IWA bundle’s ID (which is displayed in the terminal after it’s signed) and the URL to your Web Application Update Manifest. Once you have both, Go to the Users & browsers tab in Devices > Chrome > Apps & extensions in the Admin panel.

Once there, click the yellow floating add (+) button, then the Add an Isolated Web App button. This will open a dialog for you to enter the bundle ID and the update manifest URL. After entering it, you can choose how you want it to be installed and whether you want it to launch on login. Once saved, the app will be installed the next time a policy update is applied to Chromebooks in the Organizational Unit you set the app up for.