Release Notes

Attach a few lines to a release, such as “Faster checkout. Photo upload fixed on Android.” Your team sees them next to the release in the dashboard, and the app can show them once after the update as a “What's new” screen.

Notes are plain text with line breaks, up to 2,000 characters. Showing them in the app needs @otakit/capacitor-updater 3.3 or later; everything else works with any plugin version.

Write notes when you release

In the dashboard, the release dialog has a “Release notes” field. From the CLI:

otakit release --channel production --notes "Faster checkout.
Photo upload fixed on Android."

# Or from a file, in the same command that uploads
otakit upload --release production --notes-file NOTES.txt

Agents pass notes to prepare_release and publish_release, and show you the text before publishing. Over the API, send notes with the release; see the REST API.

Notes belong to the release, so the same bundle can carry different notes on beta and production. Write them for the people using your app: what changed for them, in a few short lines.

Show “What's new” in the app

After an update, getUnseenReleaseNotes() returns the running release's notes until you mark them seen, so each release shows once per phone:

import { OtaKit } from '@otakit/capacitor-updater';

await OtaKit.notifyAppReady(); // first, so a bundle that rolls back never marks its notes seen
try {
  const notes = await OtaKit.getUnseenReleaseNotes(); // { text, version, releaseId } or null
  if (notes) {
    showWhatsNew(notes.text);
    await OtaKit.markReleaseNotesSeen();
  }
} catch {
  // A native shell on plugin 3.2 or older doesn't have these methods.
}

function showWhatsNew(text: string) {
  const sheet = document.createElement('div');
  sheet.className = 'whats-new';
  sheet.textContent = text; // plain text: never insert it as HTML
  document.body.append(sheet);
}

Render notes as text, with white-space: pre-line for line breaks. Never insert them as HTML. The bundle the app is running also exposes its notes as getState().current.notes and in the updateApplied event.

Edit notes later

Fix a typo or polish the copy from the release's menu in the dashboard (“Edit release notes”) or with PATCH /releases/:releaseId/notes. Phones that update from then on get the new text; phones that already updated keep the notes they received.

Security

Notes travel in their own signed block of the release manifest. The app only shows notes signed for that exact release, so they cannot be changed in transit. Older plugin versions ignore the block and update as before.