Ionic2 integrate custom iOS plugin with Alamofire framework as dependency

I have installed on my machine cordova 7.0 & Ionic 3.4.0. I made a custom plugin using plugman and it's structured as following:

src - ios & android folders with the native files
www - .js file
plugin.xml
package.json

Adding it to a Ionic 2 project (which is using cordova-ios 4.4.0) works fine, it's generated as expected and I can use it.

Now I need to add Alamofire framework as a dependency to my plugin. I need it to be handled automatically when a plugin is installed. I saw from the documentation (How to add framework as dependency) that I should add:

<framework src="GoogleCloudMessaging" type="podspec" spec="~> 1.2.0" />

To the plugin.xml in the custom plugin. I added it but when I re-add the plugin into the ionic2 project it is not installing also the framework/pod.

I saw other topics related to mine but neither is helping me. I've tried everything, but I can't get it done.

Also, something weird with the tag from the plugin.xml, according to the documentation is:

Paired with type="podspec", this is the spec string for the CocoaPod you want to install (static library only). CocoaPod support only exists in cordova-ios 4.3.0 and cordova-cli 6.4.0. For your plugin, make sure you add the appropriate tags and package.json dependencies to ensure backwards-compatible support.

Isn't this quite strange, will it work for newer versions of cordova-ios?

Plugin - package.json content:

{
    "name": "cordova-plugin-requestService",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "author": "*******",
    "private": true,
    "engines": {
        "cordovaDependencies": {
            "1.0.0":  { "cordova-ios": ">=4.4.0" }
        }
    }
}

plugin.xml content:

<!-- iOS -->
<platform name="ios">
    <dependency id="cordova-plugin-add-swift-support" version="^1.6.0" />
    <framework src="Alamofire" type="podspec" spec="~> 4.4.0" />
    <config-file target="config.xml" parent="/*">
        <feature name="requestService">
            <param name="ios-package" value="requestService" />
        </feature>
    </config-file>
    <source-file src="src/ios/requestService.swift" />
</platform>

Solution

I mainly solved the problems:

Made a fresh starter of Ionic (with the latest versions of both cordova and ionic) - will migrate to the newer versions because of the incompatibilities between the cli's and project.
Used tag in the plugin.xml of the custom plugin
Added platform - without the plugin (for now)
Manually add the plugin (it will generate the podfile into the platform and other things) It will although throw an error because of the Alamofire. Add to the podfile use_frameworks! and it should be fine.

I also added the plugin automatically while triggering platform add ios

Unfortunately, cordova doesn't support yet this, but it's an open issue: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CB-11893

You can use either a hook after add platform or https://github.com/blakgeek/cordova-plugin-cocoapods-support if you don't want to write it everytime, manually.