Release Channels

Release channels let you distribute early versions of your builds to limited audiences for testing or other purposes. You can create public channels for users to subscribe to, or invite different groups of people to private release channels. When you are confident your app is ready for release, you can copy your build to the Production channel and then submit it for Oculus review.

Oculus provides four default release channels for your apps:

• Alpha
• Beta
• Release Candidate
• Production

Rift and Quest (Store) developers may create custom channels in addition to these channels at any time. If you are a Quest (App Lab) developer, you may create custom channels after your app has successfully passed its first Oculus review.

Alpha, Beta, Release Candidate Channels

The first time you upload a build for your app, it goes into the Alpha release channel. After this first build, you are free to select different channel destinations when you upload builds.

Initially, the Alpha, Beta, and Release Candidate channels are empty and contain no users, not even yourself. You can:

• Mark a channel as public and users can subscribe themselves
• Invite Oculus users into a channel

Apps distributed through release channels appear in the My Preview Apps section of Oculus Home.

Note: All uploaded apps, even alpha builds, must meet the release packaging requirements for your platform. Uploading an app to a release channel signifies that you are ready to release it to an audience even if that audience is a group of internal testers.

Production Channel and Oculus Review

The Production channel does not have subscribers. The name displayed for this channel is “Production (AppLab)” or “Production (Store)” depending on the type of app. When you place a build in this channel for the first time, nothing happens until after you enter all your Submission Info and click Submit for Review to start the Oculus review process. For more information on the review process, see App Upload and Store Submission.

After Oculus approval, if this is a Rift or Quest (Store) app, users can browse and find your app in the Store. If this is a Quest (AppLab) app, users can access your app’s product description page by way of direct URL or find it with an exact name search in the Store. If your app is a Rift app approved for Oculus keys only, users who have keys can download your app.

Any new builds of an approved app that you copy to the Production channel triggers an update for all users who are entitled to download the release version of your app. See Updating Published Apps.

You can view and manage the state of your release channels at any time by viewing the Release Channels page for your app:

1. Log on to https://developer.oculus.com/manage.
2. Select an app from the My Apps page, and select Release Channels

If you are an Oculus for Business developer, the Release Channels page segregates release channels into Business and Store sections. The following image shows an example:

This page enables you to complete the following tasks:

• Upload Builds to a Release Channel You can upload new builds to any release channel. New builds must have a higher version number than the last uploaded build.
• Add Users to a Release Channel Describes how to make a channel public or how to invite up to 100 Oculus users to release channels by email invitation.
• Copy Builds Between Release Channels Describes how to copy a build to another release channel to expose it to a new set of testers or users.
• Add Custom Release Channels Shows how to create additional release channels if you need more.