---
modificationDate: August 05, 2024
title: Advanced release channels
---
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# Advanced release channels
> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](/llms.txt). Use this file to discover all available pages.
> This doc was archived in August 2022 and will not receive any further updates. To learn more about why release channels were deprecated, [see our blog post on EAS Update](https://blog.expo.dev/eas-update-preview-progress-f504a30066fc#:~:text=Traditionally%2C%20Expo%20developers,need%20more%20control). Instead, we recommend using [EAS Update](/eas-update/introduction).
## Introduction
For a quick introduction to release channels, [read this](/archive/classic-updates/release-channels).
When you publish your app by running `expo publish --release-channel staging`, it creates:
- a release, identified by a `publicationId` for Android and iOS platforms. A release refers to your bundled source code and assets at the time of publication.
- a link to the release in the `staging` release channel, identified by a `channelId`. This is like a commit on a git branch.
For simplicity, the rest of this article will refer to just the `ios` releases, but you could swap out ios for android at any point and everything would still be true.
## See past publishes
You can see everything that you've published with `expo publish:history`.
#### Example command and output
`expo publish:history --platform ios`
| publishedTime | appVersion | sdkVersion | platform | channel | publicationId |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2018-01-05T23:55:04.603Z | 1.0.0 | 24.0.0 | ios | staging | 80b1ffd7-4e05-4851-95f9-697e122033c3 |
To see more details about this particular release, you can run `expo publish:details`
#### Example command and output
`expo publish:details --publish-id 80b1ffd7-4e05-4851-95f9-697e122033c3`
## What version of the app will my users get?
Your users will get the most recent compatible release that was pushed to a release channel. Factors that affect compatibility:
- sdkVersion (standalone apps are built to support only a single SDK version)
- platform
- releaseChannel
The following flowchart shows how we determine which release to return to a user:
## Promoting a release to a new release channel
Example use case: you previously published a release to `staging` and everything went well in your testing. Now you want this release to be active in another release channel (ie) production
We run `expo publish:set` to push our release to the `production` release channel. `expo publish:set --publish-id 80b1ffd7-4e05-4851-95f9-697e122033c3 --release-channel production`
Continuing from the previous section, we can see that our release is available in both the `staging` and the `production` release channels.
`expo publish:history --platform ios`
| publishedTime | appVersion | sdkVersion | platform | channel | publicationId |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2018-01-05T23:55:04.603Z | 1.0.0 | 36.0.0 | ios | staging | 80b1ffd7-4e05-4851-95f9-697e122033c3 |
| 2018-01-05T23:55:04.603Z | 1.0.0 | 36.0.0 | ios | production | 80b1ffd7-4e05-4851-95f9-697e122033c3 |
| 2018-01-04T22:43:19.302Z | 1.0.0 | 36.0.0 | ios | production | d6b61741-a8dc-11e9-852a-3b0715b88238 |
## Rollback a release channel entry
Example use case: you published a release to your `production` release channel, only to realize that it includes a major regression for some of your users, so you want to revert to the previous version.
Continuing from the previous section, we roll back our `production` release channel entry for just the iOS platform with `expo publish:set`
`expo publish:set --release-channel production --publish-id d6b61741-a8dc-11e9-852a-3b0715b88238`
Or, we could roll back the `production` release channel entry for both Android and iOS with: `expo publish:rollback --release-channel production --sdk-version 36.0.0`
Now we can see that our releases are available on the production release channel.
`expo publish:history --platform ios`
| publishedTime | appVersion | sdkVersion | platform | channel | publicationId |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2018-01-04T22:43:19.302Z | 1.0.0 | 36.0.0 | ios | production | d6b61741-a8dc-11e9-852a-3b0715b88238 |
## Release channels CLI tools
### Publish history
```text
Usage: expo publish:history [--release-channel ] [--count ]
View a log of your published releases.
Options:
-c, --release-channel Filter by release channel. If this flag is not included, the most recent publications will be shown.
-count, --count Number of logs to view, maximum 100, default 5.
-r, --raw Produce some raw output.
-p, --platform Filter by platform, android or ios.
```
### Publish details
```text
Usage: expo publish:details --publish-id
View the details of a published release.
Options:
--publish-id Publication id. (Required)
-r, --raw Produce some raw output.
```
### Publish rollback
```text
Usage: expo publish:rollback
Rollback an update to a release channel. Equivalent to running `expo publish:set` with publish-id set to the most recent release to the specified sdk version
Options:
-c, --release-channel The name of the release channel to roll back (Required)
-s, --sdk-version The SDK version to roll back (e.g. 37.0.0) (Required)
-p, --platform The platform to roll back (roll back both unless specified)
```
### Publish set
```text
Usage: expo publish:set --release-channel --publish-id
Set a published release to be served from a specified channel.
Options:
-c, --release-channel The channel to set the published release. (Required)
-p, --publish-id The id of the published release to serve from the channel. (Required)
```