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CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Enabling Live Updates with Shorebird

You have reached the final configuration step - setting up Shorebird to enable over-the-air updates for your Flutter apps. This powerful feature lets you update your apps without going through the app stores.

Setting Up the Shorebird CLI​

Codika interacts with Shorebird through their CLI. Let's get it installed and connected to your account. The CLI installation is straightforward simply run the following command:

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

Once installed, run shorebird login to get you signed in. This will open your browser for authentication.

Quick intro to Shorebird​

Shorebird wraps your Flutter app with a simple update-checking mechanism. While powerful under the hood, using it is remarkably straightforward - just replace flutter create with shorebird create when starting your project.

Remember that only apps built with the Shorebird wrapper can receive over-the-air updates. This is why enabling Shorebird at the beginning of your project is essential.

Why set up Shorebird now?

Setting up Shorebird takes just a minute but provides tremendous value. The ability to bypass app store review processes for most updates makes it an invaluable addition to any Flutter project.

Adding Shorebird Credentials to Codemagic​

Tutorial Video

Video recording in progress. Available soon.

Since it is Codemagic's servers that will build your app rather than your local machine, they need access to your Shorebird account. This allows Codemagic to execute the shorebird create command during the build process. We accomplish this by adding your Shorebird token to Codemagic.

This is done by using the shorebird login:ci command. Run this command and copy the token provided.

Add this token as a team secret in Codemagic.

  1. Open your Codemagic Team settings
  2. Navigate to Global Variables and secrets
  3. Add a new variable with the name SHOREBIRD_TOKEN.
  4. Paste the token into the value field.
  5. For the group write shorebird and click on Create "shorebird" group.
  6. Make sure the Secure option is checked.
  7. Click Add to save.

What's next?​

If you've followed all the steps of this guide, your Codika environment is now fully configured. You should be able to start building.