Same issue here. It's likely because your project was created with an older Xcode: the main target is a plain watchOS app (SDKROOT=watchos) with no iOS container, so archiving gives a bare watchOS archive and the Organizer won't offer "Distribute to App Store". Xcode 26's watch-only template auto-adds a hidden iOS container target (product type …watchapp2-container, SDKROOT=iphoneos, takes the top-level bundle id; the watch app becomes …watchkitapp and gets embedded). Archiving that container is what makes it App-Store-distributable. Just add that container target. Hand-editing project.pbxproj is fiddly, so I had Claude Code patch the settings against a freshly-created project — done in minutes.

Thanks for this awesome post! I know it has been 3 years but is there still anyway I can get a complete sample of the code? Thanks again @RJStover