React Native OTA Best Practices: Safer & Faster Mobile Releases with Stallion

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced mobile development world, over-the-air (OTA) updates are no longer a nice-to-have—they are essential. React Native teams need faster release cycles, safer deployments, and better control over how updates reach users.

Stallion is a modern OTA management platform for React Native that simplifies and automates these workflows out of the box.

In this article, we’ll walk through best practices for OTA updates and show how Stallion helps you implement them effortlessly.

Common OTA Pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

Many teams make costly mistakes when managing OTA releases manually or with legacy tools:

• Shipping Untested Bundles: Deploying updates straight to production without testing can lead to crashes.
• No Rollback Safety Nets: Without auto rollback, unstable releases can break your app for users.
• Poor User Experience: Forcing updates to install immediately on app start can frustrate users or impact install rates.
• Lack of Phased Rollouts: Rolling out to 100% of users at once increases risk.
• No Real-time Monitoring: Without analytics, you can’t track adoption or catch issues early.

Stallion helps eliminate these issues with an integrated toolset.

React Native OTA Best Practices

• End-to-End Testing Before Production: Always test your Stallion release internally via the SDK modal before promoting.
• Phased Rollouts: Roll out updates to a small user percentage first, then expand gradually.
• Automated Rollback: Enable Stallion’s auto rollback for failed installs or poor adoption.
• Track Everything: Use Stallion Console to monitor installs, downloads, and rollback metrics.
• Custom Install Strategies: Leverage Stallion’s JS API and useStallionUpdate() hook to tailor how and when updates are downloaded or applied.

Using Stallion’s JS API for Custom Update Flows

Stallion’s JS API allows you to create highly customizable update flows. Here's a breakdown of how you can use the core methods:

• useStallionUpdate(): Access metadata for the currently running and new releases. Use fields like isMandatory, releaseNotes, or version from newReleaseBundle to create dynamic strategies—for example, forcing mandatory updates or showing release notes in-app.
• sync(): Manually trigger an update check and download the bundle to memory when needed.
• addEventListener(): Listen to SDK events such as DOWNLOAD_STARTED, UPDATE_INSTALLED, or AUTO_ROLLBACK to build custom user prompts or logs.

Example:

import { useStallionUpdate } from "react-native-stallion";

const MyCustomUpdateHandler = () => {
  const { isRestartRequired, currentlyRunningBundle, newReleaseBundle } =
    useStallionUpdate();

  if (newReleaseBundle?.isMandatory) {
    // Trigger auto-install or alert user to force update
  } else if (newReleaseBundle) {
    // Show releaseNotes or version as part of a non-mandatory update prompt
  }

  if (isRestartRequired) {
    // Optionally trigger app restart
  }

  return null;
};

You can combine this with sync() to fully control how and when updates are fetched and applied.

For a full list of API methods, check out the Stallion API Reference.

With Stallion, you are in full control of how and when updates are discovered, downloaded, and installed.

How Stallion Enforces These Best Practices

• Integrated Testing Flows: The SDK modal allows internal users to download and test updates before they ever reach production.
• Safe Deployments: Stallion auto-detects failed releases and triggers automatic rollbacks.
• Phased Rollout Controls: Easily configure rollout percentages inside the Stallion Console.
• Full Visibility: Track release health via adoption metrics and rollback stats.

Conclusion

Adopting OTA best practices ensures your team delivers updates that are fast, safe, and reliable.

Stallion not only simplifies your workflow but gives you powerful tools to fully control the OTA lifecycle in React Native.

Ready to improve your OTA strategy? Get started with Stallion today!