Poor App Store submission experience: repeated failed builds due to uncaught issues

Summary

A user spent an entire day trying to submit a macOS app (QuickIP Lite) to the App Store. What should have been a 10-minute task resulted in 8+ builds being uploaded to Apple, most failing due to issues Claude should have caught before archiving.

Issues encountered

1. Quarantine extended attributes — Claude added image files to the project without clearing com.apple.quarantine xattr. Apple rejects packages containing quarantined files. Claude said "ready to go" without checking.

1. Icon confusion — Claude overwrote correct icon assets with old backup versions, undoing work from earlier sessions. Then had to restore from git.

1. Pre-baked rounded corners on app icon — Claude didn't catch that the app icon had rounded corners already baked in, causing Apple to render it with a visible white border when applying its own mask.

1. False confidence — Claude repeatedly said builds were "ready to archive" without actually verifying. No pre-submission checks were run (quarantine flags, entitlements, plist validation, asset verification).

1. Unnecessary build number burns — Each failed upload burns a build number with Apple. The user went from build 3 to build 9 in one day due to preventable failures.

Expected behavior

• Claude should run pre-submission validation before confirming readiness (quarantine check, entitlement check, asset verification, build number verification)
• Claude should never say "ready" without actually running verification commands
• Claude should not overwrite files without understanding the current state
• Claude should understand App Store submission requirements (no quarantine xattr, proper icon formatting, etc.)

Environment

• Claude Code CLI on macOS
• Native Swift macOS app targeting App Store (sandboxed)
• Xcode archive → App Store Connect upload workflow