Generate an APK with eas in Expo React Native

Tiempo de lectura: 2 minutos

Reading time: 2 minutes

Today I’m going to show you how to generate an APK using eas in Expo React Native.

The first thing we’re going to do is install eas-cli:

npm install -g eas-cli

Once installed, we launch the command to configure:

eas build:configure

And this appears:

We select what we want to configure (iOS, Android, or both).

In my case, I select both.

Once configured, the default configuration looks like this:

{
  "cli": {
    "version": ">= 0.42.4"
  },
  "build": {
    "development": {
      "distribution": "internal",
      "android": {
        "gradleCommand": ":app:assembleDebug"
      },
      "ios": {
        "buildConfiguration": "Debug"
      }
    },
    "preview": {
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "production": {}
  },
  "submit": {
    "production": {}
  }
}

Before executing anything, we need to have a free Expo account.

To log in with the account, we enter this:

npx expo login -h

We enter the email and password and we are logged in to Expo.

Now, to generate the APK, we need to enter the following command:

eas build -p android --profile preview

It will ask us to generate a new keystore:

Generate a new Android Keystore?

We choose yes, and we will use it for production.

Now we have to wait while the build is generated. Eas generates builds remotely on its own server, which allows us to generate Android / iOS without having the environment.

Once generated, the link where we can download our APK will appear. Remember that this APK is for development and not for production.