Over-the-air (OTA) JS updates & release channels (React Native)

About over-the-air (OTA) JS updates & release channels (React Native)

Diataxis: Explanation. This page builds understanding of OTA delivery — the reasoning behind the picks. It is not a setup guide. Store releases and native versioning are owned by RB-E-RN-VERSIONS; brownfield constraints by RB-E-BROWNFIELD; the monitoring an update bake relies on by RB-E-OBSERVABILITY. Read this for the why.

The one principle that organises everything: OTA is your rollback story, not a convenience

The seductive framing of OTA is "ship JS fixes without waiting for the store." The correct framing is the inverse: republishing a known-good update is the fastest production mitigation React Native has, and everything about how you run OTA should serve that. So run updates like releases — channels, staged percentage rollouts as exposure control, a monitored bake period, and abort vs republish-rollback as distinct mitigations learned before you need one. Respect the hard boundary: OTA can update interpreted JS and assets within store guidelines, but a native change can never ship OTA — that is a store release (RB-E-RN-VERSIONS). And know the history: the hosted CodePush service died 2025-03-31, so "still pointed at CodePush" is the silent failure mode of this category.

The default, and why

On Expo/EAS → EAS Update via the expo-updates client (channels + phased rollouts + rollback, and diffing makes updates dramatically smaller since SDK 55/56). Hard self-host requirement → hot-updater, or the open expo-updates protocol with your own server. Anything still pointed at the retired CodePush service is silently broken — migrate.

EAS Update is the hosted default because the release-engineering pieces are built in: updates map to channels, roll out phased to a percentage of users, and roll back by republishing — "much like a new commit." The client got materially better in SDK 55: bsdiff diffing applies patches against previously installed Hermes bytecode instead of re-downloading whole bundles — an estimated ~75% smaller update downloads, opt-in in SDK 55 and default in SDK 56. The self-host escape hatches are real: the Expo Updates protocol is open (bring your own server, keep the battle-tested client), and hot-updater exists precisely as the CodePush successor for no-vendor shops.

The landscape, and when each piece earns its place

EAS Update (expo-updates client) — the hosted default. Channels, phased rollouts, republish-to-rollback; SDK 55 added bsdiff diffing (est. ~75% smaller downloads; default in SDK 56). The first-party pick for any Expo app.

expo-updates + custom server — the protocol is open, so you can self-host the server and keep the battle-tested client. More ops work than EAS; earns its place under a no-vendor rule.

hot-updater — self-hosted open-source OTA (gronxb), explicitly positioned as the CodePush successor. Actively maintained (v0.35.x, 2026-07) but younger than expo-updates — the self-host pick when you don't want the Expo client at all.

code-push-server (standalone) — Microsoft's open-sourced server, compatible with the legacy react-native-code-push client. A self-host stopgap that keeps an existing CodePush app alive while you migrate — not a bet for new ones.

react-native-code-push (RETIRED service) — App Center and the hosted CodePush service shut down 2025-03-31; the repo is archived and the client npm has been dormant since 2024-12. Migrate (urgency: dead) to hot-updater or expo-updates + EAS Update.

Tradeoffs and failure modes to name out loud

• Still pointed at the dead service. The hosted CodePush shutdown doesn't crash your app — it just stops updating it. Anything still targeting the retired service is silently broken; standalone code-push-server is a stopgap, not a destination.
• OTA run as a hotfix cannon, not a release. The production playbook is staged percentage rollouts and a monitored bake period — "sometimes it helps to go a little slower." Shipping to 100% instantly forfeits the exposure control that makes OTA safe.
• Conflating abort with rollback. They are distinct mitigations — halting an in-progress rollout vs republishing a known-good update — and the time to learn the difference is before the incident, not during it.
• Expecting OTA to carry a native change. Store policy allows updating interpreted JS/assets within guidelines; native changes always require a store release (RB-E-RN-VERSIONS). Every OTA pipeline needs the "does this touch native?" gate.
• Self-hosting as identity, not requirement. Both self-host paths cost real ops work, and hot-updater is younger than expo-updates. Take them for a hard no-vendor requirement.

How it interacts with the rest of the stack

• Native versioning (RB-E-RN-VERSIONS). The hard boundary: the moment a change touches native code, OTA is out and the store-release machinery owned there is in — two halves of one release story.
• Brownfield (RB-E-BROWNFIELD). RN embedded in a native app can still get OTA — Expo Updates works in isolated brownfield since SDK 55; the embedding constraints live there.
• Observability (RB-E-OBSERVABILITY). A "monitored bake period" is only as good as the monitoring behind it; the tooling that tells you whether to abort or roll back is owned there.

In one paragraph

OTA is your rollback story: republishing a known-good update is the fastest production mitigation React Native has, so run updates like releases — channels, staged percentage rollouts, a monitored bake period, and abort vs republish-rollback as distinct mitigations. Default to EAS Update via the expo-updates client (SDK 55's bsdiff diffing, an estimated ~75% smaller downloads, default in SDK 56); with a hard self-host requirement take hot-updater or the open expo-updates protocol on your own server. Native changes never ship OTA — that's a store release (RB-E-RN-VERSIONS) — and the hosted CodePush service died 2025-03-31, so anything still pointed at it is silently broken and must migrate.

See also: RB-E-RN-VERSIONS (store releases; the native-change boundary), RB-E-BROWNFIELD (Expo Updates in isolated brownfield since SDK 55), RB-E-OBSERVABILITY (the monitoring a bake period depends on).