Evaluation vs licensed edition

The short version

• The Evaluation edition (react-native-background-location-pro-eval on npm) runs the complete native pipeline in debug builds. Same capture, same offline queue, same sync, same recovery. It is not a demo with features removed.
• Release builds of the Evaluation edition report buildTier: 'release', and tracking stays off with the status [eval_release_blocked].
• To ship to users, you buy a one-time license and get the full native source in a private GitHub repository.

Side by side

	Evaluation edition	Licensed edition
Price	Free	One-time payment, see pricing
Debug builds	Full native pipeline	Full native pipeline
Release and store builds	Blocked ([eval_release_blocked])	Allowed
JS API	The API documented here	Identical. No code changes when you switch.
Native source code	Precompiled binary	Full Kotlin and/or Swift source, yours to modify
Custom headers, auth and payload format	No	Yes, edit the source
Detailed internals README	No	Yes, in the private repository
Backend ingestion server with live map	No	Yes
Store approval blueprint (manifest, Info.plist, privacy manifest, disclosure text, reviewer notes)	No	Yes
Commercial use	Evaluation only	Personal and commercial projects
Updates	npm releases	Lifetime updates to the repositories you bought

Checking the tier from JS

const {buildTier, message} = LocationTracker.getStatus();

if (buildTier === 'release') {
  // Evaluation edition in a release build: tracking is disabled.
  console.warn(message); // "[eval_release_blocked] Evaluation build - production use requires a license..."
}

What licensed customers get

Once you become a paid user, you are added to the private repository for your edition. Along with the full source, it contains a dedicated README with much more detail on how the internals work, including:

• How the capture, filtering, persistence, sync and recovery stages fit together on each platform.
• Where to plug in your own logic, such as auth headers, custom payloads, extra point fields, geofences or different storage.
• How the retry, backoff and dead-letter logic is structured, and how to tune or replace it.
• How to adapt the foreground notification, background tasks and permission flows for your app.
• How to run the included backend ingestion server, live map and fault injection for testing.

These public docs deliberately cover only the TypeScript API. The private README is meant to help you build on top of the package for your own use case.

Switching from evaluation to licensed

1. Buy the edition for your platforms. See Licensing and pricing.
2. Accept the GitHub invitation to the private repository.
3. Replace the npm dependency with the licensed package by following the README in the private repository.
4. Your JavaScript keeps working unchanged. The licensed edition implements the same Spec.