To test your new features on a real device you can create a beta version.
We prefer creating beta version from the main branch.
./scripts/deploys/deploy-beta-both
and soon you will have betas on testflight and firebase
Ask eigen beta? on the #practice-mobile channel to get the links if you are not in the betas yet.
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Deployment to TestFlight and Play Store is handled by Circle CI. Nightly betas are release automatically, but if you need to deploy something right away, run ./scripts/deploys/deploy-beta-both (or ./scripts/deploys/deploy-beta-ios or ./scripts/deploys/deploy-beta-android for individual releases) locally to trigger a beta build on CI. It takes about 45 minutes. There is a blog post on the process here.
Note that only one beta can be deployed at a time; teams should use feature flags to avoid the need for having two parallel beta versions.
There are two types of betas on TestFlight: Internal and External. Our deploy script sends the beta to both groups. However, Internal testers get access to the beta immediately, while external testers may have a delay of several hours/days while Apple does beta review. This additional review typically only happens when we change the version number.