How to run expo start with release-channels

Question

I want to try running my react native app locally but against my staging and/or production server. I'm looking to do this by setting a release-channel variable when I run expo start. I hope this can test/foreshadow some performance in beta and production.

I tried the command expo start --release-channel staging and I got an error error: unknown option '--release-channel'

How can I set Constants.manifest.releaseChannel when I run expo start?

Answer 1

Environment variables don't exist explicitly, but you can utilize release channels to make that happen! Say you have a workflow of releasing builds like this:

expo publish --release-channel staging-v1

For standalone apps:

Build your standalone app by running

expo build:ios --release-channel <your-channel>
expo build:android --release-channel <your-channel>

You can access the channel your release is published under with the releaseChannel field in the manifest object. Constants.manifest.releaseChannel does NOT exist in dev mode. It does exist, however when you explicitly publish / build with it.

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