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Getting started

Create a DL2App project, connect your iOS and Android apps, make a link and test it on a phone. About fifteen minutes.

DL2App gives your app short links that open the app when it is installed, send people to the right store when it is not, and deliver the link to the app after a fresh install. This page takes you from nothing to a working link.

1. Create a project

Create an account, then a project. A project is one app (its iOS and Android versions together). You choose a subdomain, and the project gets two addresses straight away:

  • yourapp.dl2.app, where your links live;
  • yourapp-alt.dl2.app, a second host used by “open in app” buttons. iOS only opens an app from a tap that crosses from one domain to another, so the button on your link page has to point at a different host.

2. Add your apps

Under Apps, enter what the phone platforms need to trust your links:

  • iOS: your Apple Team ID, bundle ID and App Store ID.
  • Android: your package name and the SHA-256 fingerprints of your signing certificates. If you use Play App Signing, copy the fingerprint from Play Console under Protected with Play → Play Store distribution → Go to Play app signing (the “App signing key” section), not from your local keystore.

DL2App then serves the two association files, /.well-known/apple-app-site-association and /.well-known/assetlinks.json, on every host of the project. You do not host anything yourself.

3. Tell your app about the hosts

Your app has to declare the same hosts, and should include the SDK so it receives each link as a path and data. Pick your platform:

The Setup page of your project shows the exact snippets with your hosts filled in, and a publishable key (pk_live_…) for the SDK. That key is safe to ship inside the app.

Under Links, choose New link. The two fields that matter most:

  • App path, for example /invite/42. Your app receives this and navigates to it.
  • Link data, optional JSON delivered with the path, for example {"inviter":"42"}.

Leave everything else alone and the link uses the project’s defaults: open the app, otherwise the App Store or Google Play, otherwise a landing page with a QR code on desktop. The link page draws the route for each kind of visitor so you can check it before sharing.

5. Test it on a real phone

  • Send the link to yourself in Notes or Messages and tap it. Do not paste it into Safari’s address bar: iOS never opens apps from a typed address.
  • On Android, tap it from a chat or an email.
  • Run the project’s Health checks. They fetch the association files the way Apple and Google do and tell you what is wrong in plain words.
  • On a link’s page, Test this link makes one-hour debug links that show what an iPhone, an Android phone, Instagram’s browser, a desktop and a preview bot would each get.
  • The public link checker runs the same checks for any address without an account.

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Documentation · DL2App