Queries aggregate EAS Update health from eas-cli: crash rates, installs, unique users, payload size, and embedded-vs-OTA split per channel. Use when checking whether a published Expo OTA update is healthy or which update is most popular. Not for publishing updates, configuring channels, or per-device crash forensics.
Queries aggregate EAS Update health from eas-cli: crash rates, installs, unique users, payload size, and embedded-vs-OTA split per channel. Use when checking whether a published Expo OTA update is healthy or which update is most popular. Not for publishing updates, configuring channels, or per-device crash forensics.
Query the health of published EAS Updates directly from the CLI: launches, failed launches, crash rates, unique users, payload size, the embedded-vs-OTA user split per channel, and the most popular updates per runtime version. The data is the same data that powers the update and channel detail pages on expo.dev; these commands expose it in the terminal in human and JSON form.
When to Use
Use this when the user wants to assess the health or adoption of a published EAS Update: crash rates, install counts, unique users, bundle size, or the split between embedded and OTA users on a channel.
Example prompts:
"How is the latest update doing?"
"Is the latest update healthy?"
"Is the new release crashing more than the last one?"
"How many users are on the latest update vs the embedded build?"
"Which update is most popular on production right now?"
"How big is our update bundle?"
Also fits: post-publish rollout monitoring and regression detection.
Don't use when the user needs per-user crash detail or device-level reporting; this skill only exposes aggregate EAS metrics.
Prerequisites
eas-cli installed (npm install -g eas-cli).
Logged in: eas login.
For channel:insights: run from an Expo project directory (the command resolves the project ID from app.json). update:insights only needs a login.
Windows host is primary (PowerShell). In PowerShell, replace bash-style $(...) command substitution with $(...) (same syntax) or assign to a variable first; jq must be installed and on PATH.
Procedure
Commands at a glance
Command
Purpose
eas update:list
Discover recent update groups, their group IDs, and branch names
eas channel:insights --channel <name> --runtime-version <version>
Embedded/OTA user counts, most popular updates, cumulative metrics for a channel + runtime
All of these support --json --non-interactive for programmatic parsing.
1. Discover the update group ID
Before querying insights for an update group, you need its group ID. Use eas update:list with either --branch <name> (updates on that branch) or --all (updates across all branches). Always pass --json --non-interactive when running non-interactively; without a branch/--all flag the command will otherwise prompt for a branch selection:
# Latest group id across all branches
eas update:list --all --json --non-interactive | jq -r '.currentPage[0].group'# Latest group id on a specific branch
eas update:list --branch production --json --non-interactive | jq -r '.currentPage[0].group'
The JSON response has a currentPage array with one entry per update group (both platforms of the same publish are collapsed into one entry):
{"currentPage":[{"branch":"production","message":"\"Fix checkout crash\" (1 week ago by someone)","runtimeVersion":"1.0.6","group":"03d5dfcf-736c-475a-8730-af039c3f4d06","platforms":"android, ios","isRollBackToEmbedded":false}]}
Entries also carry codeSigningKey and rolloutPercentage, but only when those features are in use for the group (undefined values are omitted from the JSON output).
When called with --branch <name>, the response also includes name (the branch name) and id (the branch ID) at the top level.
2. Query per-update insights with eas update:insights <groupId>
Shows launches, failed launches, crash rate, unique users, launch asset count, and average payload size for a single update group, broken down per platform (iOS, Android), plus a daily breakdown of launches and failures.
eas update:insights 03d5dfcf-736c-475a-8730-af039c3f4d06
Flags:
Flag
Description
--days <N>
Look back N days. Default: 7. Mutually exclusive with --start/--end.
--start <iso-date> / --end <iso-date>
Explicit time range, e.g. --start 2026-04-01 --end 2026-04-15.
--platform <ios|android>
Filter to a single platform. Omit to see all platforms in the group.
JSON output shape: top level groupId, timespan (start, end, daysBack), and platforms[] with one entry per platform the group was published to. Each platform entry has updateId, totals (uniqueUsers, installs, failedInstalls, crashRatePercent), payload (launchAssetCount, averageUpdatePayloadBytes), and a daily[] time series of { date, installs, failedInstalls }.
For the complete schema and field reference, load references/update-insights-schema.md when you need to interpret or validate JSON fields from update:insights or update:view --insights.
Fields that matter for health assessment:
platforms[].totals.crashRatePercent, computed as failedInstalls / (installs + failedInstalls) * 100. Zero when there are no installs.
platforms[].totals.installs and uniqueUsers give the adoption signal.
platforms[].daily is a time series, useful for spotting a sudden spike in failures.
3. View group details with inline insights: eas update:view <groupId> --insights
Extends the standard update:view output with the same per-platform insights, inline.
# Human-readable
eas update:view 03d5dfcf-... --insights
eas update:view 03d5dfcf-... --insights --days 30
# JSON: wrapped as { updates: [...], insights: {...} }
eas update:view 03d5dfcf-... --json --insights
Without --insights, update:view behaves exactly as before — no JSON shape change for existing consumers. The --days / --start / --end flags only apply when --insights is set; passing them alone errors.
4. Query channel-level insights: eas channel:insights --channel <name> --runtime-version <version>
Shows, per channel, how many users are on the embedded build vs over-the-air updates and which updates are pulling the most traffic. Must be run from an Expo project directory.
eas channel:insights --channel production --runtime-version 1.0.6
Flags:
Flag
Description
--channel <name>
Required. The channel name (e.g. production, staging).
--runtime-version <version>
Required. Match exactly what was published. Check runtimeVersion values in update:list.
--days <N>
Look back N days. Default: 7.
--start / --end
Explicit time range, like update:insights.
--json / --non-interactive
Machine-readable output.
JSON output shape: top level channel, runtimeVersion, timespan, embeddedUpdateTotalUniqueUsers, otaTotalUniqueUsers, mostPopularUpdates[] (each with rank, groupId, message, platform, totalUniqueUsers), cumulativeMetricsAtLastTimestamp[], plus chart-shaped uniqueUsersOverTime and cumulativeMetricsOverTime objects with labels and datasets.
For the complete schema and field reference, load references/channel-insights-schema.md when you need to interpret or validate JSON fields from channel:insights.
Fields that matter:
embeddedUpdateTotalUniqueUsers is the count of users running the embedded (binary-bundled) build.
mostPopularUpdates[] is updates ranked by totalUniqueUsers. Caveat: this is the top-N the server returns; otaTotalUniqueUsers is a sum of that list and may undercount total OTA reach if more than top-N updates are active.
uniqueUsersOverTime and cumulativeMetricsOverTime are daily data series for charting.
5. Common workflows
Verify the update I just published is healthy
# 1. Grab the latest publish on production
GROUP_ID=$(eas update:list --branch production --json --non-interactive \
| jq -r '.currentPage[0].group')
# 2. Give it some adoption time (minutes to hours), then check crash rate
eas update:insights "$GROUP_ID" --json --non-interactive \
| jq '.platforms[] | {platform, installs: .totals.installs, crashRate: .totals.crashRatePercent}'
Compare the crashRate across platforms and against previous releases; sudden spikes or asymmetric behaviour (iOS spiking while Android is flat, or vice versa) is the signal to investigate.
Compare adoption between two channels
for channel in production staging; doecho"--- $channel ---"
eas channel:insights --channel "$channel" --runtime-version 1.0.6 --json --non-interactive \
| jq '{
channel,
embedded: .embeddedUpdateTotalUniqueUsers,
ota: .otaTotalUniqueUsers,
topUpdate: .mostPopularUpdates[0]
}'done
Human-readable group details plus 30 days of launches/failures per platform — suitable for pasting into a changelog or incident review.
Pitfalls
Unique users across platforms may double-count users who run the same publish on both iOS and Android. The same caveat applies to otaTotalUniqueUsers in channel insights, which is a sum over mostPopularUpdates.
Fresh publishes may show zeros for a short period while the metrics pipeline catches up.
Installs are downloads, not launches: the installs / "Launches" field counts users who downloaded the manifest and launch asset. A confirmed run only registers on the user's next update check (typically up to 24h later, depending on the app's update policy). So metrics lag the real-world state slightly.
Crashes are self-reported: failedInstalls / "Crashes" counts updates that errored during install/launch and were reported on the next update check. Crashes that don't trigger an update request (e.g. process kill before recovery) won't appear.
otaTotalUniqueUsers undercounts when more than top-N updates are active, because it is a sum over mostPopularUpdates[] only.
--days / --start / --end on update:view only apply when --insights is set; passing them alone errors.
update:list without --branch or --all will prompt for a branch selection; always pass one of those flags plus --non-interactive in scripts.
CLI/server version skew: EAS Update insights is not supported by this version of eas-cli. Please upgrade ... means the server deprecated a field the CLI relies on. Run npm install -g eas-cli@latest.
Wrong platform filter: Update group "<id>" has no ios update (available platforms: android) — --platform ios was used but the group wasn't published for iOS.
Missing group: Could not find any updates with group ID: "<id>" — group doesn't exist or you lack access.
Missing channel: Could not find channel with the name <name> — typo or wrong account.
No OTA launches yet: "No update launches recorded" in the table / empty mostPopularUpdates in JSON — no OTA update has been launched for that channel + runtime yet. Usually means the channel is still serving the embedded build only.
Display vs JSON naming: The CLI table labels say "Launches" / "Crashes" while JSON uses installs / failedInstalls. Same field, different display name.
Dates: daily[].date values are UTC ISO timestamps; the human-readable table renders them as YYYY-MM-DD (UTC).
Verification
Confirm eas-cli is installed and you are logged in:
eas --version
eas whoami
Confirm you can list recent updates and extract a group ID:
eas update:list --branch production --json --non-interactive | jq -r '.currentPage[0].group'
Expected: a UUID-like string, e.g. 03d5dfcf-736c-475a-8730-af039c3f4d06.
