SharePoint 2013 Apps life cycle

Figure 1. Lifecycle for app for SharePoint development

Start developing apps for SharePoint

In Start, we tell you all the basics—about getting set up with Office 365 for developers, about the app model in general, and about discovering the technologies that you'll need to learn or those you might already know and can apply right away to your app for SharePoint development. We've provided links to deeper info, code samples, and how-to tasks to help you get started building great apps. If we succeeded with providing what you need to know in Start, you should have all the info you need to navigate the rest of the docs. If we didn't, we want to hear from you about where we can make the docs better! This set of docs is just a preview–we are constantly updating topics based on customer feedback and questions, offering new articles. 

Design apps for SharePoint

Let's say you have a killer idea for an app. In this section, we'll guide you through the design decisions you need to make and offer best practices to build your app. For example, what makes a good user interface? What are the app "shapes" available? When should I use one instead of another? What options do I have for data access? You get the picture.

Develop apps for SharePoint

Develop is the meat of the docs. We've got in-depth overviews, how-to articles, and code snippets to help explain all the different things you can do in an app for SharePoint. You'll find articles about performing CRUD operations on lists, how to build REST queries and interact with the new APIs, how and when to configure OAuth for security, and how to bring the richness of SharePoint into your app. SharePoint has enterprise social features like activity feeds and user profiles, along with enterprise content management features, LOB interoperability features, and website design features that can really make your apps stand out. Learn more about them in Add SharePoint 2013 capabilities.

And, code is key, so take a look at the "Samples" menu in the Dev Center. It's a direct link to our code samples for apps. As soon as you've set up your development environment, you should check out a few of our samples. Take advantage of a community feature that lets you request a code sample if we don't have one you'd like to see. We take those requests, along with other doc feedback and use them in our continuous updates to the content and samples. So please, let us know if you'd like to see something!

Publish apps for SharePoint

So now you've built your app, and you're ready to share it. Publish teaches you how to make your app available to your users. You can do this by publishing the app to one of two places:

• The public Office Store. Publish your app to the Office Store to make the app publically available, so that it can be acquired by users of any SharePoint deployment.
• An internal organization app catalog. Publish your apps to an internal organization app catalog, hosted on your SharePoint deployment, to make them available to users with access to that SharePoint deployment.