Carthage

bootstrap reads Cartfile.resolved, checks out and builds the dependencies at the versions listed.

update reads Cartfile, runs a dependency resolver and checks out dependencies recursively –generally aiming for the newest versions that are compatible– and rebuild the project's dependencies.

This builds the frameworks. You might want to use that with --no-use-binaries. This may take time.

This ensures that carthage doesn't skip over anything and builds the frameworks. You might want to use that with --no-use-binaries. This may take time.

Build for iPhone platform.

Build for Mac desktop platform.

Build for all platforms.

Download the dependencies as submodules. If you use this --flag, this makes the dependencies available as Git submodules. This allows you to make changes in the dependencies, and commit and push those changes upstream.

Use this flag to ensure all the workspace dependencies get checked out. Otherwise carthage will default to the binary framework releases.

This is a real time saver. You can download the dependencies but not build the .framework file. This will also skip the creation of a Carthage/build folder.

Instead of downloading and re-building all the dependencies, you can just specify which dependency to build.

Spell out everything that is happening.

Checkout a dependency from some-branch-or-tag-or-commit