I have a Forge apps that are not on the marketplace. I distrubute them via the installation link URL provided via the distribution option in the app developer console. When I deploy these these apps to production via ‘forge deploy -e production’, the sites where the app is installed are not updated. Is there a way to automatically update an app that is installed via a shared link, as opposed to installed from the MarketPlace?
Hi @IanBradley,
The roll-out mechanic for Forge is the same, regardless of whether or not the app is on the Marketplace.
How the app is updated depends on whether or not your changes constitute a major version or minor version. Our documentation has details on this: https://developer.atlassian.com/platform/forge/versions/#app-versions. The short version of this is that a new major version is created whenever you make changes to your app that require the customer to grant increased permissions to the app.
If the version you deployed is a new major version, it cannot be automatically updated on customer sites as this would create a privilege escalation security vulnerability. The customer must manually review and approve the changed permissions your app needs.
If the version you deployed is a new minor version, then the changes are updated automatically across all installations of the app.
If you deploy a new major version that is important for your customers to adopt, then you could look at notification mechanisms like an email campaign or in-app notifications to encourage customers to update to the new version.
With all that said, this system is not ideal. We have substantial problems with customers not updating their apps and remaining on outdated versions indefinitely. We’re looking at improvements in this area to make it easier to ensure customers are always running the latest version of your app; even if they have not yet approved changed permissions.
Thanks @HeyJoe . Yes, it’s working but appears to take up to 24 hours. No probs - I can work with that
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