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I have built an Android application using Expo v52 with React Native and now I want to generate a preview APK. In my project, I use an environment variable like: EXPO_PUBLIC_API_URL=http://192.168.57.53:3000/api . I want to include this in the APK such that I can update it later without rebuilding the entire app. Is there a way to change it post-build in a preview APK for local testing? like there is option in react website deployment, we set key.

Currently, I have defined EXPO_PUBLIC_API_URL in the .env file, but I read that it can also be specified in eas.json. Is there a way to use EAS secrets to make this variable dynamic?

I haven't built any APK for React Native Expo yet, so please help. I couldn’t find any relevant documentation on this.

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2 Answers 2

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If you want to use environment variables inside your eas.json file, you will need to add env objects inside development, preview & production. This is my eas.json for example.

{
  ...
  "build": {
    "development": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal",
      "ios": {
        "simulator": true
      },
      "env": {
        "API_URL": "https://www.google.com/"
      },
      ...
    },
    "preview": {
      "distribution": "internal",
      "ios": {
        "simulator": true
      },
      "android": {
        "buildType": "apk"
      },
      "env": {
        "API_URL": "https://www.facebook.com/"
      },
      ...
    },
    "production": {
      "env": {
        "API_URL": "https://www.stackoverflow.com/"
      }
      ...
    }
  },
  "submit": {
    "production": {}
  }
}
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2 Comments

Is it possible to make the API_URL dynamic here by storing it in EAS Secrets? I want to update it without needing to rebuild the app.
I doubt it. That i do not know.
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No, you can't change the value of EXPO_PUBLIC_API_URL after building the APK, because Expo embeds the .env values at build time. To change it post-build, you need to rebuild the APK with new .env values.

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Is there another way to make it dynamic?

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