There is a difference between installing (running) the app and publishing it on an IoT Open server.
Publishing apps so that they are available to installations in (not public) or outside (public) of your organizations can be done using the organizations view in the UI. There is an option on the left called "Edge Apps" when you have opened the organization details. Publishing apps involves creating a description, adding tags and some other data. Then the specific version can be created by uploading the app.lua together with the app.json file. Versions can get renamed from the default hash after creation.
To test-run the app before publishing there is several methods available. You can use the edge-client docker container to run the app. Or use the Virtual Appliance and run it there. Some setup is required for both these methods, perhaps someone can fill in a bit of details about that here too.
