CodePush

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Important

Visual Studio App Center is scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025. While you can continue to use Visual Studio App Center until it is fully retired, there are several recommended alternatives that you may consider migrating to.

Learn more about support timelines and alternatives.

CodePush is an App Center cloud service that enables React Native developers to deploy mobile app updates directly to their users’ devices. It works by acting as a central repository that developers can publish certain updates to (for example, JS, HTML, CSS and image changes), and apps can query for updates from (using the provided client SDKs). This allows you to have a more deterministic and direct engagement model with your end users while addressing bugs, adding small features that don’t require you to rebuild a binary, or redistributing it through any public app stores. All React Native apps created on App Center are CodePush enabled by default; to start using CodePush you need the following steps:

Note

For Android devices, CodePush will only work on TLS 1.2 compatible devices

Note

CodePush API usage has a rate limitation of 8 requests per 5 minutes applied. Those are counted per combination of the following: Requested endpoint, IP request is coming from, deployment key, and client unique id. If the limit is reached, response with a status code 429 would be returned:

{
   "statusCode": 429,
   "message": "Rate limit is exceeded. Try again in X seconds."
}

1. Install the App Center CLI

You manage most of CodePush's functionality using the App Center CLI. To install the CLI, open a terminal window or command prompt and execute the following command:

npm install -g appcenter-cli

Note

If you find an EACCES error executing this command, you may have to fix npm permissions on your system. Many sites recommend using the sudo command to get around this error, but you should never install npm modules using sudo.

After successfully installing the App Center CLI, execute the appcenter login command to configure the CLI for your App Center account details.

2. CodePush-ify your app

Add the CodePush client SDK to your app, and configure it to pull app updates from one of your deployments in App Center. The following sections provide details on how to do this for the supported app platforms:

3. Release an app update

After making changes to your app’s code or assets, publish the update to App Center using the App Center CLI as described in the following sections.

React Native

Execute the App Center CLI release-react command to bundle your app's code and asset files, then publish them to the App Center server as a new release. For example:

appcenter codepush release-react -a <ownerName>/MyApp

Cordova

Execute the App Center CLI release-cordova command to bundle your app's code and asset files, then publish them to the App Center server as a new release. For example:

appcenter codepush release-cordova -a <ownerName>/MyApp

Tip

One important feature in the App Center CLI is the ability to set an app as the current app using appcenter apps set-current <ownerName>/<appName>. By setting an app as the current app you don't have to use the -a flag. For example, the command appcenter codepush deployment list -a <ownerName>/<appName> can be typed as appcenter codepush deployment list if current app is set. You can check which app is set as your account's current app by using appcenter apps get-current. Utilizing this command make most of the CLI commands shorter.

4. Run your app

Once these steps are complete, all users running your app will receive the update using the experience you configured in step #2. For more information, see the CLI and client SDK documentation (Apache Cordova, React Native).