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TRUSTED_TESTERS.md

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Trusted Testers

While this document is public, access to Shorebird services are not yet generally available. We're running a trusted tester program with a limited number of users to ensure that we're building the right thing and that it's stable for general use.

If you'd like to be a part of the program, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/T7x5h5bb6bMBB7hUA

Welcome!

If you're joining the trusted tester program, welcome! Thank you for your help making Shorebird a reality.

Our goal

Our goal with this Trusted Tester program is to shake out bugs and ensure that we are building things people want. We want your feedback. We want you to break things. We want you to tell us what you want to see next. We're already a default-public company, but we intend to be even more open with you and will be shipping your regular updates during the program, responding to your feedback.

Filing issues is a good way to provide feedback. Feedback via Discord is also welcome.

Our guiding principle for these early days is "first, do no harm". It should be the case that using Shorebird is never worse than not using Shorebird. It is still possible using early versions of Shorebird could break your app in the wild. If you believe that's the case, please reach out, we're here to help.

What works today

You can build and deploy new (release) versions of your app to all Android users via shorebird command line from a Mac, Linux or Windows host.

All users will synchronously update to the new version on next launch (no control over this behavior yet, issue).

Basic access to the updater through package:dart_bindings (unpublished). https://github.com/shorebirdtech/shorebird/tree/main/updater/dart_bindings

Shorebird command line can show a list of what apps and app versions you've associated with your account and what patches you've pushed to those apps. https://github.com/shorebirdtech/shorebird/tree/main/packages/shorebird_cli

What doesn't yet

No support for:

  • Flutter channels (only latest stable 3.7.10 is supported)
  • Rollbacks (issue)
  • Shorebird channels (staged rollouts of patches) issue
  • Percentage based rollouts
  • Async updates / downloads issue
  • Analytics
  • Web interface
  • CI/CD (GitHub Actions, etc.) integration
  • Patch signing issue

Installing Shorebird command line

Install the shorebird command-line tool by running the following command:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 https://raw.githubusercontent.com/shorebirdtech/install/main/install.sh -sSf | sh

This installs shorebird into ~/.shorebird/bin and adds it to your path. It also installs a copy of Flutter and Dart inside ~/.shorebird/bin/cache/flutter. These versions are not intended to be used for development (yet), you can continue to use the versions of Flutter and Dart you already have installed.

The total install is about 300mb.

More information: https://github.com/shorebirdtech/install/blob/main/README.md

Using Shorebird code push

If you already have a Flutter app, you can build it with Shorebird in a few steps:

  1. The first step is to login. shorebird login will prompt you with a Google OAuth sign-in link. Not all shorebird commands require login, but it's best to just do it first to avoid unexpected errors later.

  2. Once you're logged in, you can use shorebird init. This needs to be run within the directory of your Flutter app, it reads and writes your pubspec.yaml and will write out a new shorebird.yaml file.

shorebird init does three things:

  1. Tells Shorebird that your app exists (e.g. so it can hold patches to it and vend them to devices when asked).
  2. Creates a shorebird.yaml file to your project. shorebird.yaml contains the app_id for your app, which is the unique identifier the app will send to Shorebird servers to identify which application to pull updates for.
  3. Finally, shorebird init also adds the shorebird.yaml to the assets section of your pubspec.yaml file, ensuring shorebird.yaml is bundled into your app's assets.

You can go ahead and commit these changes, they will be innocuous even if you don't end up using Shorebird with this application.

If you don't want to try this on your main application yet, any Flutter app, including the default Flutter counter works too, e.g.

% flutter create shorebird_test
% cd shorebird_test
% shorebird init
? How should we refer to this app? (shorebird_test) shorebird_test
✓ Initialized Shorebird (38ms)

🐦 Shorebird initialized successfully!

✅ A shorebird app has been created.
✅ A "shorebird.yaml" has been created.
✅ The "pubspec.yaml" has been updated to include "shorebird.yaml" as an asset.

Reference the following commands to get started:

🚙 To run your project use: "shorebird run".
📦 To build your project use: "shorebird build".
🚀 To push an update use: "shorebird patch".

For more information about Shorebird, visit https://shorebird.dev
  1. Typical development usage will involve normal flutter commands. Only when you go to build the final release version of your app, do you need to use the shorebird command-line tool.

Permissions needed for Shorebird

Shorebird code push requires the Network permission to be added to your AndroidManifest.xml file. (Which in Flutter is located in android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml.) This is required for the app to be able to communicate with the Shorebird servers to pull new patches.

<manifest ...>
    <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" />
    ...
</manifest>

Running shorbird doctor will check that your AndroidManifest.xml file is set up correctly.

Shorebird's fork of Flutter

shorebird uses a fork of Flutter that includes the Shorebird updater. This fork is currently based on Flutter 3.7.10. We replace a few of the Flutter engine files with our own. To do that, we use FLUTTER_STORAGE_BASE_URL to point to download.shorebird.dev instead of download.flutter.dev. We pass through unmodified output from the flutter tool so you will see a warning from Flutter:

Flutter assets will be downloaded from http://download.shorebird.dev. Make sure you trust this source!

For more information about why we had to fork Flutter see: (FORKING_FLUTTER.md)[FORKING_FLUTTER.md].

Running your Shorebird-built app

You can use shorebird run to build and run your app on a connected Android device. This is similar to flutter run --release just with Shorebird's fork of the Flutter engine that includes the Shorebird updater.

shorebird run wraps flutter run and can take any argument flutter run can. To pass arguments to the underlying flutter run use a -- separator. For example: shorebird run -- -d my_device will run on a specific device.

During this trusted tester period, you will likely see several logs from the shorebird updater. These are for debugging in case you have trouble and will be removed/silenced in future iterations.

Example:

eseidel@erics-mbp test_counter % shorebird run
Running app...
Using hardware rendering with device sdk gphone64 arm64. If you notice graphics artifacts, consider enabling software rendering with "--enable-software-rendering".

Launching lib/main.dart on sdk gphone64 arm64 in release mode...

Running Gradle task 'assembleRelease'...
   17.6s

✓  Built build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk (8.5MB).

Installing build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk...
   375ms



Flutter run key commands.

h List all available interactive commands.

c Clear the screen

q Quit (terminate the application on the device).

W/FlutterJNI( 7283): shorebird.yaml: app_id: 4f636c95-f859-4de3-a730-dde1c099cd53

D/flutter ( 7283): updater::logging: Logging initialized

I/flutter ( 7283): updater::config: Updater configured with: ResolvedConfig { is_initialized: true, cache_dir: "/data/user/0/com.example.test_counter/code_cache/shorebird_updater", download_dir: "/data/user/0/com.example.test_counter/code_cache/shorebird_updater/downloads", channel: "stable", app_id: "4f636c95-f859-4de3-a730-dde1c099cd53", release_version: "1.0.0", original_libapp_path: "libapp.so", vm_path: "libflutter.so", base_url: "https://api.shorebird.dev" }

I/flutter ( 7283): [INFO:flutter_main.cc(108)] Starting Shorebird update
W/flutter ( 7283): updater::cache: Failed to load updater state: No such file or directory (os error 2)

I/flutter ( 7283): updater::network: Sending patch check request: PatchCheckRequest { app_id: "4f636c95-f859-4de3-a730-dde1c099cd53", channel: "stable", release_version: "1.0.0", patch_number: None, platform: "android", arch: "aarch64" }
D/flutter ( 7283): reqwest::connect: starting new connection: https://api.shorebird.dev/

E/flutter ( 7283): updater::updater: Problem updating: error sending request for url (https://api.shorebird.dev/api/v1/patches/check): error trying to connect: dns error: failed to lookup address information: No address associated with hostname

E/flutter ( 7283): updater::updater: disabled backtrace
W/flutter ( 7283): updater::cache: Failed to load updater state: No such file or directory (os error 2)
E/flutter ( 7283): [ERROR:flutter/shell/platform/android/flutter_main.cc(127)] Shorebird updater: no active path.

If you see messages like

E/flutter ( 7283): updater::updater: Problem updating: error sending request for url (https://api.shorebird.dev/api/v1/patches/check): error trying to connect: dns error: failed to lookup address information: No address associated with hostname

That indicates you have not yet added the network permissions (see above) to your app, as I had forgotten when running my example above.

Creating a release

Before you can start uploading patches, you will need to create a release. Creating a release builds and submits your app to Shorebird. Shorebird saves the compiled Dart code from your application in order to make patches smaller in size.

Example:

shorebird release
✓ Building release (17.9s)
✓ Fetching apps (0.1s)

What is the version of this release? (0.1.0) 0.1.0

🚀 Ready to create a new release!

📱 App: shorebird_test (4f636c95-f859-4de3-a730-dde1c099cd53)
📦 Release Version: 0.1.0
⚙️  Architecture: aarch64
🕹️  Platform: android
#️⃣  Hash: cfe26dddf8aff17131042f9dfad409c83eb130c5a9f2fd6f77325b2388062265

Your next step is to upload the release artifact to the Play Store.
./build/app/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab

See the following link for more information:
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859152?hl=en

Would you like to continue? (y/N) Yes
✓ Fetching releases (55ms)
✓ Creating release (45ms)
✓ Creating artifact (1.8s)

✅ Published Release!

Publishing patches to your app

To publish a patch to your app, use shorebird patch. It should look like:

shorebird patch
✓ Building patch (16.2s)
✓ Fetching apps (0.1s)

Which release is this patch for? (0.1.0) 0.1.0

🚀 Ready to publish a new patch!

📱 App: shorebird_test (4f636c95-f859-4de3-a730-dde1c099cd53)
📦 Release Version: 0.1.0
⚙️ Architecture: aarch64
🕹️ Platform: android
📺 Channel: stable
#️⃣ Hash: cfe26dddf8aff17131042f9dfad409c83eb130c5a9f2fd6f77325b2388062265

Would you like to continue? (y/N) Yes
✓ Fetching releases (41ms)
✓ Fetching release artifact (43ms)
✓ Downloading release artifact (0.2s)
✓ Creating diff (0.1s)
✓ Creating patch (64ms)
✓ Creating artifact (0.3s)
✓ Fetching channels (40ms)
✓ Publishing patch (43ms)

✅ Published Patch!

This will generate a new patch for your app and upload it to the Shorebird servers for distribution to all other copies of your app. For example, you could try shorebird run to run and install your app, and then stop it. Make edits and shorebird patch and then run the app again directly (by clicking on it, without using shorebird run) and you should notice that it updates to the latest built and published version rather than using the previously installed version.

The current shorebird patch flow is not how we envision Shorebird being used longer term (e.g one might push a git hash to a CI/CD system, which would then publish it to Shorebird). However, it's the simplest thing to do for now.

Note that you can only publish a patch to an app that you have already told shorebird about. This is normally done by shorebird init + shorebird release. If needed you can also create an app via shorebird apps create and modify the shorebird.yaml directly yourself, see: https://github.com/shorebirdtech/shorebird/tree/main/packages/shorebird_cli#create-app

Your applications in the wild will query for updates with their app_id (which comes from shorebird.yaml) and their release version (which comes from AndroidManifest.xml, which in turn is generated from pubspec.yaml).

Building a release version of your app

You can use shorebird build to build a release version of your app including the Shorebird updater.

shorebird build wraps flutter build and can take any argument flutter build can. To pass arguments to the underlying flutter build you need to put flutter build arguments after a -- separator. For example: shorebird build -- --dart-define="foo=bar" will define the "foo" environment variable inside Dart as you might have done with flutter build directly.

Success should look like this:

% shorebird build appbundle
✓ Building shorebird engine (8.0s)
✓ Building release  (6.4s)

Update behavior

The Shorebird updater is currently hard-coded to update synchronously on launch. This means that when you push a new version of your app, all users will update on next launch.

We expect to add more control over update behavior in the future, including async updates and percentage based rollouts. Please let us know if these are important to you and we are happy to prioritize them!

The Shorebird updater is designed such that when the network is not available, or the server is down or otherwise unreachable, the app will continue to run as normal. Should you ever choose to delete an update from our servers, all your clients will continue to run as normal.

We have not yet added the ability to rollback patches, but it's on our todo list and happy to prioritize it if it's important to you. For now, the simplest thing is to simply push a new patch that reverts the changes you want to undo.

Play Store

Although Shorebird connects to the network, it does not send any personally identifiable information. Including Shorebird should not affect your declarations for the Play Store.

Requests sent from the app to Shorebird servers include:

  • app_id (specified shorebird.yaml)
  • channel (optional in shorebird.yaml)
  • release_version (versionName from AndroidManifest.xml)
  • patch_number (generated as part of shorebird patch)
  • arch (e.g. 'aarch64', needed to send down the right patch)
  • platform (e.g. 'android', needed to send down the right patch) That's it. The code for this is in updater/library/src/network.rs

Play Store Guidelines

Shorebird is designed to be compatible with the Play Store guidelines. However Shorebird is a tool, and as with any tool, can be abused. Deliberately abusing Shorebird to violate Play Store guidelines is in violation of the Shorebird Terms of Service and can result in termination of your account.

Examples of guidelines you should be aware of, include "Deceptive Behavior" and "Unwanted Software". Please be clear with your users about what you are providing with your application and do not violate their expectations with significant behavioral changes through the use of Shorebird.

Code push services are widely used in the industry (all of the large apps I'm aware of use them) and there are multiple other code push services publicly available (e.g. expo.dev & appcenter.ms). This is a well trodden path.

What about iOS?

Current Shorebird is Android-only. We have plans to add iOS, but not yet implemented. Using Shorebird for your Android builds does not affect your iOS builds. You can successfully ship a Shorebird-built appbundle to Google Play and contintue to ship a Flutter-built ipa to the App Store. The difference will be that you will be able to update your Android users sooner than you will your iOS users for now.

Disabling Shorebird

First, do no harm

Shorebird is designed to be a drop-in replacement for the stock Flutter engine, and can be disabled at any time with no effect on your users.

Building with shorebird build will include Shorebird code push in your app. Building with flutter build --release will not include Shorebird in your app. At any time you can simply drop back to flutter build and things will work as they did before.

We have not yet added the ability to delete your account from Shorebird from the command line, however reach out to us via Discord or email and we are happy to help you immediately delete your account and disable all updates for your app(s) deployed with Shorebird. We anticipate adding this ability to the command line in the near future.

You can remove shorebird from your path by removing it from your .bashrc or .zshrc and deleting the .shorebird directory located in ~/.shorebird.