Controlling OTA releases based on app version

[lenoirzamboni]

Is it possible to control which OTA versions can be released for a specific app version? For example, after a store release that includes different native dependencies, can we ensure that only compatible OTA versions are applied to that app version?

This would help prevent issues caused by mismatched native dependencies and JavaScript updates. If this functionality exists, how can it be configured in Xavia?

[remyoudemans]

Expo have solved this problem with Fingerprinting:

• they have a good explainer on it here
• here are their docs on it

A key part of it is setting the runtimeVersion policy to "fingerprint" in your app config. That guarantees the runtime version updates every time native code changes, which in turn also guarantees that js updates only go out to users with compatible native code on their device.

  "runtimeVersion": {
    "policy": "fingerprint",
  }

I haven't tried it without EAS, but as far as I can tell that's all you need to solve the problem and it should work without EAS.

Bonus tip: I highly recommend this Github action https://github.com/expo/expo-github-action/blob/main/fingerprint/README.md#example-workflows. It labels your PRs so you can know if a PR will cause a new runtime version or not.