Best practise for Cordova apps. Include platforms directory?

Yes it is ignored, it’s always generated during the build (in the linked How To / config), but because the cordova/ionic generated Xcode project is not compatible with Xcode 8’s new code signing mechanism you need to force the Team ID and the Code Signing Identity (as you can see it at:[quote=“viktorbenei, post:2, topic:885”]
Note: the key to make the cordova/ionic generated Xcode project to work with Xcode 8 is to force a team id and “iPhone Developer” as the identity
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How you can force that depends on the tool, our example demonstrates how you can do it with our Xcode Archive step.