What are Flutter channels (stable, beta, dev, master) and when would you use each?

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Flutter ships releases through channels you can switch between: stable — production. Quarterly cuts (~3 months). Default channel for new installs. What you ship to app stores. beta — pre-release. Monthly cuts. Good for testing upcoming features. Not for production. dev — retired in June 2021 . Its role folded into master ; old tutorials may still reference it. master — bleeding edge from git main. Latest features and latest bugs. Useful only for Flutter contributors; expect breakage. Production practice: use FVM (Flutter Version Manager) to pin a Flutter version per project so a global flutter upgrade doesn't break old repos. Two senior signals: (1) **the `dev` channel was retired in June 2021** — its role folded into `master`; mentioning this signals you actually follow Flutter releases (and you'll see old StackOverflow/Medium posts still referencing `dev`); (2) **use FVM (Flutter Version Manager) to pin Flutter per-project** — most production teams do this so a global `flutter upgrade` doesn't break old branches. Avoid recommending `master` for anything — it's for Flutter contributors, not app developers.