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