Push translation fixes without a release

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Quickstart

curl --request GET \
  --url https://api.phrase.com/v2/projects/<PROJECT_ID> \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>'

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Prerequisites

1. Authentication set up. See the Authentication guide. The token needs the write scope to create and publish releases, and the calls below send the short-lived JWT it is exchanged for as Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>.
2. The Over-the-Air (OTA) feature on your plan. It is a paid add-on, and a request without it returns 403.
3. A project ID, the project code taken from the project in Phrase.
4. Your account ID. Distribution and release calls are scoped to it.
5. An Over-the-Air (OTA) SDK in your app. Add the SDK for your platform; it fetches translations at runtime.

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How-to

1. Create the distribution once. A distribution is set up once per project and platform set, against your account. The name and project_id fields are required; valid platforms are android, ios, flutter, i18next, and rails. The response does not include the distribution secret the SDK needs; copy that from the distribution’s page in the Phrase web interface. If creation returns 403, the account plan does not include Over-the-Air, so enable the feature before going further.
   curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.phrase.com/v2/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/distributions \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>' \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data '{
       "name": "Acme iOS",
       "project_id": "<PROJECT_ID>",
       "platforms": ["ios"],
       "locale_ids": ["<LOCALE_ID>"]
     }'
   
2. Create a release. A new release starts in the development environment. The response returns 201 with an auto-incremented version. At this point the release exists but is not live yet.
   curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.phrase.com/v2/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/distributions/<DISTRIBUTION_ID>/releases \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>' \
     --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
     --data '{"description": "Fix checkout button copy"}'
   
3. Publish the release. Publishing is the step that pushes the fix to users. A 200 confirms it, and the release now lists production in its environments, so the SDK fetches it on its next check with no app-store submission. If publish returns 200 but nothing changes, the release was already published, which is a safe no-op; create a new release for the next fix. A 422 means a field failed validation, often an app_min_version that is not valid semantic versioning; the errors array names it, so correct it and retry.
   curl --request POST \
     --url https://api.phrase.com/v2/accounts/<ACCOUNT_ID>/distributions/<DISTRIBUTION_ID>/releases/<RELEASE_ID>/publish \
     --header 'Authorization: Bearer <JWT_TOKEN>'
   
4. How the fix reaches the app. Once a release is published, the SDK fetches the updated translations from the content delivery network at runtime and applies them. If the network is slow or down, the SDK falls back to its cached files, then to the copy bundled in the app, so a fetch failure never leaves the screen blank.

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When it breaks: common errors

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Troubleshooting

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Next steps

1. Review the reference pages this guide calls: Create a distribution, Create a release, and Publish a release.
2. To publish on a schedule instead of by hand, see Release triggers.