Flutter OTA Updates with Shorebird
Flutter OTA Updates with Shorebird Why We Needed OTA Updates We pushed a build with a small logic error. It was a one-line fix. By the time we noticed, the app was already crashing on our users' devices. Sentry was firing nonstop. We fixed the code fast. But shipping the fix was slow. The new build took about 8 hours to go live on Android and 12 hours on iOS. The crashes kept happening the whole…
In an incident where a small logic error in a Flutter app led to crashes on users' devices, the developers realized the need for over-the-air (OTA) updates. They found Shorebird, a code push tool for Flutter, which allowed them to send Dart code updates directly to users' phones without the need for a new store release or review.
This resulted in patches downloading silently in the background, reaching users far sooner than a normal release. Shorebird only applies Dart code changes, while native changes would still require a store release. The developers set up Shorebird in their production app with separate flavors for development and production, running shorebird init and shorebird create to initialize the tool.
They configured the shorebird.yaml file with unique identifiers for each app flavor. To release a build, they ran shorebird release for both Android and iOS, followed by shorebird preview to test the release. Patches could then be pushed using shorebird patch for each platform, addressing bugs without going through the store review process.
The Shorebird console provided insights into the number of users affected by each release and patch. While Shorebird cannot fix native issues, it serves as a safety net, allowing developers to fix problems quickly instead of waiting for a traditional release cycle.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.