Hot Updater - Self-hosted OTA updates for React Native

Channels let you manage updates across different environments (development, staging, production) and target specific user groups or separate applications.

Overview

Channels work for both environment management and multi-app scenarios. You can use them to separate environments like dev, staging, and production, or to manage completely different apps (e.g., app2, app3, app4) with their own channels.

Default Channel: Apps use the production channel when no channel is specified.
Environment Management: Separate your environments (dev, staging, production) to control which updates go where.

Setting Up Channels

1. Specify Channel in Configuration File

Use the hot-updater channel set command to specify your desired channel.

npx hot-updater channel set <channel>

This command will modify the native project files for you. Here's what changes:

ios/HotUpdaterExample/Info.plist

<key>HOT_UPDATER_CHANNEL</key> 
<string>your_set_channel</string>

android/app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml

<resources>
    <string name="app_name">HotUpdaterExample</string>
    <string name="hot_updater_channel" moduleConfig="true">your_set_channel</string>
</resources>

For Expo, you need to add the channel to the plugin configuration in your app.json file.

app.json

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      [
        "@hot-updater/react-native",
        {
          "channel": "<your-channel-name>"
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

Replace <your-channel-name> with your desired channel (e.g., production).

After modifying app.json, run prebuild to apply the changes to the native projects.

npx expo prebuild --clean

Custom Configuration Paths

For projects with non-standard structures or iOS app extensions, you can configure custom paths for platform-specific configuration files in your hot-updater.config.ts:

hot-updater.config.ts

import { defineConfig } from "hot-updater";

export default defineConfig({
  // ... other configurations
  platform: {
    ios: {
      infoPlistPaths: [
        "ios/YourApp/Info.plist",
        "ios/YourAppExtension/Info.plist", // Include extension Info.plist
        "ios/NotificationService/Info.plist"
      ]
    },
    android: {
      stringResourcePaths: [
        "android/app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml",
        "android/app/src/debug/res/values/strings.xml" // Include additional resource files
      ]
    }
  }
});

This is useful when:

Your iOS project has app extensions (widgets, share extensions, notification services)
You have multiple Android build variants with different resource paths
Your project doesn't follow the standard React Native file structure

Important: Configure these custom paths before running hot-updater channel set commands to ensure all relevant files are updated with the new channel.

2. Rebuild App with New Channel

After setting the channel, rebuild your app in Release mode:

iOS:

cd ios && pod install && cd ..
npx react-native run-ios --mode Release

Android:

npx react-native run-android --mode Release

iOS:

npx rock run:ios --configuration Release

Android:

npx rock run:android --variant Release

iOS:

npx expo run:ios --variant release

Android:

npx expo run:android --variant release

3. Specify Channel Deployment

You can also specify the target channel directly during deployment:

npx hot-updater deploy -p <"ios" | "android"> -c "<channel>"

Replace <channel> with your target channel name (e.g., dev, staging, production).

Retrieving the Current Channel

Use the HotUpdater.getChannel() function to retrieve the current release channel within your app. We recommend displaying this value in your app UI to visually confirm that it's using the intended update channel.

Example Usage

import { HotUpdater, getUpdateSource } from "@hot-updater/react-native";
import { Text, View } from "react-native";

function App() {
  const channel = HotUpdater.getChannel();

  return (
    <View>
      <Text>Current Channel: {channel}</Text>
    </View>
  );
}

export default HotUpdater.wrap({
  source: getUpdateSource("<your-update-server-url>", {
    updateStrategy: "appVersion", // or "fingerprint"
  }),
})(App);

Channel Behavior

Defaults to production if no channel is specified.
Channels ensure separation of different environments (e.g., dev, staging, production) to apply updates accurately.
Updates can subsequently be deployed using hot-updater deploy -c <channel>.
Important: Changing the channel requires rebuilding the native app; simply altering the configuration file or deployment commands will not affect an already built app.

Channels

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