Release channels

A release channel is a coarse stream a device subscribes to. Common choices:

• stable: production fleet (default).
• beta: opt-in early adopters.
• dev: internal devices and CI rigs.

A device belongs to exactly one channel at a time. This is deliberately simple: channels answer "how aggressive should this unit's update cadence be?".

Channel vs group

• Group: explicit membership; many per device; expresses customer / region / role.
• Channel: exactly one per device; expresses release-stream affinity.

A deployment can target devices by channel only, by group only, or by the intersection. A beta deployment to customer-acme only reaches devices that are both on the beta channel and in the Acme group.

Defaults

Auto-registered devices land on the project's default channel (stable unless changed). Move a device to a different channel via the dashboard or the developer API.

Common patterns

• Internal canary first. Cut a release first to dev channel, watch it, then cut the same artifact to stable at 5%.
• Customer-specific betas. A beta channel + a customer group lets that customer pilot a build before the rest of the fleet.