Expo
SDK 56 shipped on May 21, bringing the next round of React Native updates to the managed workflow.1
Browser-based login is now the default. EAS CLI v19 made browser authentication the default for eas login; pass --no-browser to keep the CLI-only flow.2 The same release added --refresh-ad-hoc-provisioning-profile to force a fresh pull of managed ad-hoc provisioning profiles before gathering build credentials in non-interactive mode.3
Production observability expanded. observe:routes landed in v18.13 for tracking navigation metrics, with route-name filtering added in v19.4 Combined with the earlier observe:events, observe:metrics, and observe:versions commands, the suite now covers navigation paths alongside startup and update telemetry.
Android build times got faster. Setting EAS_GRADLE_CACHE=1 enables Gradle task-output reuse across builds, cutting Android build times by up to 50%.5 It layers on top of the existing ccache-backed compiler caching for native code.
Expo Go tightened its update loading rules. The app now restricts which EAS Update projects it loads and only supports HBC bundles for EAS Update — a breaking behavioral change for developers relying on the open-loading behavior.6
Orbit v2.6.0 enabled the New Architecture and added user avatars from expo.dev, deviceId support in deep-link routes, and a fix for OAuth with third-party providers on Windows and Linux.7
Expo Observe entered private preview — a production startup metrics tool tracking cold launch, warm launch, time to interactive, and bundle load time across real user sessions, with per-release comparison and percentile breakdowns.8 GitHub sign-in also shipped, adding OAuth alongside the existing email flow.9