@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push

The React Native client for Pulsar OTA: over-the-air JavaScript updates for your app, with no app-store review. A maintained CodePush-compatible client for React Native, free to start, with self-hosting on paid plans.

This is a full CodePush client (native iOS + Android modules), not a wrapper. It is a fork of @revopush/react-native-code-push — itself the New-Architecture-maintained continuation of Microsoft's original react-native-code-push (archived March 2025). It speaks the CodePush protocol, so it works against any CodePush-compatible server; without a server URL it uses Pulsar (https://api.usepulsar.dev).

Why

Microsoft App Center CodePush shut down in March 2025 and Expo's EAS Update only covers Expo-managed projects. Pulsar keeps the CodePush protocol every bare React Native app already knows, adds staged rollouts, instant rollback, differential updates and per-release health metrics, and can be self-hosted. Read the full comparison at usepulsar.dev/codepush-alternative.

Install

yarn add @novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push
cd ios && pod install

Autolinking registers the native module on both platforms (RN 0.70+, New Architecture supported).

Point it at Pulsar

iOS — ios/<App>/Info.plist:

<key>CodePushDeploymentKey</key>
<string>YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_KEY</string>
<key>CodePushServerURL</key>
<string>https://api.usepulsar.dev</string>

Android — android/app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml:

<resources>
  <string moduleConfig="true" name="CodePushDeploymentKey">YOUR_DEPLOYMENT_KEY</string>
  <string moduleConfig="true" name="CodePushServerUrl">https://api.usepulsar.dev</string>
</resources>

Android reads CodePushServerUrl and iOS reads CodePushServerURL. Clients from 1.6.2 accept either spelling on both platforms; older ones silently ignore the wrong one.

Deployment keys are shown per app in the Pulsar dashboard.

Wrap your root component

import codePush from '@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push';

function App() { /* … */ }

export default codePush({
  checkFrequency: codePush.CheckFrequency.MANUAL,
  installMode: codePush.InstallMode.ON_NEXT_RESTART,
})(App);

The full CodePush API is available — codePush.sync(), codePush.checkForUpdate(), SyncStatus, InstallMode, CheckFrequency, notifyAppReady(), rollout %, mandatory updates, binary-version targeting, differential updates, automatic rollback, and download/install telemetry (reported to Pulsar).

Ready-made update sheet

Instead of building your own prompt on top of checkForUpdate + sync, render the built-in sheet as the last child of your root component. It checks on launch and whenever the app returns to the foreground, skips updates the device already rolled back, and never fails a download on a timer.

import codePush from '@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push';
import {PulsarUpdateSheet} from '@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push/update';

function App() {
  return (
    <View style={{flex: 1}}>
      <Navigation />
      <PulsarUpdateSheet
        deploymentKey={DEPLOYMENT_KEY}
        serverUrl="https://api.usepulsar.dev"
        theme={{primary: '#4F46E5'}}
        labels={{updateNow: 'Update'}}
      />
    </View>
  );
}

export default codePush({checkFrequency: codePush.CheckFrequency.MANUAL})(App);

Props: deploymentKey, serverUrl, installMode (default ON_NEXT_RESTART), mandatoryInstallMode (default IMMEDIATE), minimumBackgroundDuration, checkInDev, theme (primary, background, text, mutedText, danger), labels (every string the sheet shows) and renderContent(update) to draw your own panel inside the sheet.

For a fully custom UI, use the hook the sheet is built on:

import {usePulsarUpdate} from '@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push/update';

const {status, update, progress, slow, error, install, dismiss, retry, restart} = usePulsarUpdate({deploymentKey});

status is one of idle | checking | available | downloading | installing | installed | failed | upToDate. progress.hasRealProgress stays false until the first byte arrives (older iOS binaries report nothing until the download finishes), so show an indeterminate bar rather than an error. slow turns on after 30 seconds without bytes, or 20 seconds since the last one; it is a hint, not a failure. A failure only comes from the SDK.

Release descriptions can carry config tokens, stripped from the notes the user sees — before a leading | (silent, next-restart | What's new), on a trailing tags: / config: line, or as the whole description:

| Token | Effect | | --- | --- | | silent | download and install with no UI | | mandatory / forced | required update, no Later button | | immediate, next-restart, next-resume, next-suspend | install mode for this release | | no-pill / nopill | exposed as update.noPill for apps that show a progress pill |

parseUpdateConfig(description) is exported if you need the same parsing elsewhere.

Migrating from CodePush or RevoPush

Swap the import and point CodePushServerURL at Pulsar — the native modules, the JS API and the package-hash algorithm are unchanged, so devices already running your current bundle correctly report "up to date" instead of re-downloading it.

-import codePush from 'react-native-code-push';
+import codePush from '@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-code-push';

Releasing

Use the Pulsar CLI (@novacraft-engineering/pulsar-cli):

npx @novacraft-engineering/pulsar-cli release MyApp Staging --platform ios --target 1.0.0

Related

• Pulsar vs CodePush vs RevoPush
• Microsoft CodePush shutdown: what to move to
• How React Native OTA updates actually work

License

MIT. Original CodePush © Microsoft; RevoPush fork © Revopush; this Pulsar distribution © Novacraft Engineering. See LICENSE.