Note about this article #
The original version of this article was written entirely by me in Japanese.
I used AI to translate and polish the English version for a global audience, but the ideas, design decisions, implementation details, and original content are all my own work.
If you'd like to read the original Japanese article, you can find it here:
Managing custom applications in Microsoft Intune has always felt more complicated than it should be.
When you need to publish an internal application, you typically have a few options:
All of these approaches work, but none of them feel particularly developer-friendly.
In my case, the process was even more frustrating because I normally don't operate with elevated privileges. Every time I needed to publish or update an application, I had to perform a PIM elevation before making changes.
That led me to a simple question:
Why can't Intune application publishing work more like winget?
I wanted a workflow where application definitions could live in source control, be described in YAML, and be published automatically through CI/CD.
That idea became RelayPublisher.
Relaypublisher publishes winget-like YAML manifests as Microsoft Intune LOB apps from CI.
Distribution:
relaypublisher
relaypublisher
vX.Y.Z
win-x64
, win-arm64
, and osx-arm64
are attached to each GitHub release. They are neither code-signed nor notarized, so macOS shows a Gatekeeper warning.Quick install:
dotnet tool install --global relaypublisher
See doc/05-operation.md for installing from GitHub Packages or Azure Artifacts instead.
The repository now contains the .NET CLI foundation for the normal workflow:
validate
checks manifest schema rules and repository-wide identity uniqueness.plan
resolves the target manifest set once and writes manifest-list.json
for later CI jobs.package
stages app files: Windows Win32 .intunewin
packages (Windows runner required) or a
staged, checksum-verified macOS .pkg
(any OS).publish
creates or updates Intune apps, uploads packaged content…RelayPublisher is an open-source tool that allows you to define Intune applications using YAML and publish them through automation.
Instead of clicking through the Intune portal, you manage application definitions as code.
If you're already familiar with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) or GitOps practices, the concept should feel natural.
Historically, building this type of tool felt like a lot of work.
There are many moving parts:
The emergence of generative AI significantly reduced the effort required to create and maintain a project like this. Tasks that would previously have been tedious became much easier to implement.
As a result, I was finally able to build the tool I had wanted for a long time.
A sample YAML definition is included in the repository to help you get started quickly.
Example:
SchemaVersion: "1.0"
PackageIdentifier: Microsoft.PowerShell
PackageName: PowerShell
Developer: Microsoft Corporation
Publisher: Microsoft Corporation
Description: PowerShell 7 cross-platform automation and configuration tool.
PackageVersion: 7.6.5
AssignmentSync: merge
Apps:
- Platform: macos
Architecture: arm64
InstallerType: pkg
AppType: pkg
DisplayName: PowerShell [macOS ARM64]
Source:
Type: githubRelease
Owner: PowerShell
Repository: PowerShell
Tag: v7.6.5
AssetName: powershell-7.6.5-osx-arm64.pkg
Destination: powershell-7.6.5-osx-arm64.pkg
Sha256: "6ea58f4e91ab2df133ac18a42e291e4e870a623e3c5ab6f8368259cd9ac22770"
Auth:
Type: none
Requirements:
MinimumOSVersion: "15.0"
Detection:
IgnoreAppVersion: false
IncludedApps:
- BundleId: com.microsoft.powershell
BundleVersion: 7.6.5
Scripts:
PreInstall: scripts/macos/powershell/preinstall.sh
PostInstall: scripts/macos/powershell/postinstall.sh
Assignments: []