Expo Release Config

Simple Expo release configuration tools.

Goals

Provide a simple toolset to handle Expo releases with CI/CD. While everyone's implementation may vary for their apps, the hope is that the core configuration can be abstracted and aided by open source tooling.

Overview

1. Production stand alone app released by iTunes Connect and Google Play Store wtih the default release channel.
2. Staging pre-release testing and QA on a secondary stand alone app that is served internally through TestFlight and Play Store. Configured with a secondary app.json with default release channel.
3. Feature level verification and testing on Expo client app with release channel named for the feature.
4. Local development is tested locally using the Expo client app pointing to your machine url.

Here is a simple breakdown of the release environment.

Environment	Slug	App	Channel
Development	app	Expo Client	localhost
Feature QA	app-beta	Expo Client	feature/xxx
Staging	app-beta	App Beta	default
Production	app	App	default

Installation

1. Add the repo to your app's dependencies.

expo install expo-release-config

2. Expo Release Config will handle generating your app.json files for you. To organize your configuration, create an expo-config.json file in your root directory in the following format:

{
  "prod": {
    "name": "My App",
    "slug": "my-app",
    "ios": {
      "bundleIdentifier": "com.myapp"
    }
  },
  "beta": {
    "extends": "prod",
    "slug": "my-app-beta",
    "ios": {
      "bundleIdentifier": "com.myapp.beta"
    }
  },
  ...
  "version": {
    "major": 1,
    "minor": 2,
    "patch": 0,
    "build": 10
  }
}

"prod" is the default app scheme. You can add any scheme you want by adding another root attribute with its name (ie beta, staging, sandbox, etc). The "extends": "parent scheme" attribute is used to merge your configurations together. This way, you only need to store the differences, not duplicated settings.

You'll also need a version object added if you want to track versioning.

Usage

expo-config generate [scheme]

Generates an Expo app.json configuration file based on the provided scheme.

This will deep merge attributes nested in the [scheme]: {} object of your app configuration file into the specified "extends": "[scheme]" scheme and save as a new file.

npx expo-config generate beta

Using the example expo-config.json file above, the result of this command would be the following:

app.json

{
  "expo": {
    "name": "My App",
    "slug": "my-app-beta",
    "ios": {
      "bundleIdentifier": "com.myapp.beta"
    }
  }
}

expo-config version [type=patch] [--no-commit=false] [--print=false]

Bumps the version file and updates the Expo app configuration, committing by default.

Options	Default	Description
type	patch	One of major, minor, patch, build.
--no-commit	false	Whether to commit the changed version files. Only commits expo-config.json.
--print	false	Will output the next version for the bump without changing any files.

npx expo-config version minor --no-commit

Version Type	Description
major	The major released version.
minor	The minor released version. Major + Minor version (ie 1.2) will comprise the released standalone app version.
patch	The patch version. Will be incremented when publishing a new (over the air) update of your app.
build	The build number to specify versionCode (Android) and buildNumber (iOS). To simplify configuration the same number will be used for both OS.

Todo

• Publish app default with changes to $PROD branch.
• Publish app-beta default with changes to /release/xxx branch.
• Publish standalone app with tagged version.
• Publish standalone app-beta with changes to /build/xxx branch.
• Publish /feature/xxx with changes to /feature/xxx.