Getting Started (Quickstart)

This guide walks you through setting up Detour for your app and integrating the React Native SDK.

1. Create an account

Sign up at the Detour dashboard and confirm your email.

2. Create / Join an Organization

Detour is multi-tenant. An Organization groups apps, links and users and has a unique subdomain:

• When creating an organization you choose a unique subdomain: yourorg.godetour.link.
• Members invited to the organization can manage apps and links according to their role (owner / admin / member).

The organization subdomain is the base for all generated deferred links.

3. Add your App(s)

Under the organization, create an App record for each mobile app you manage. Your deferred link will by automatically created. To make it work, you need to provide the following information:

• Android:
  • Package name (e.g. com.example.app)
  • Signing certificates - SHA 265 (production and debug)
• iOS:
  • Bundle ID (e.g. com.example.app) — can be found in Xcode, on App Store Connect, or in configuration files.
  • Team ID — can be found in Xcode or on the Apple Developer website.
  • App Store ID (sometimes called the Apple ID) - can be found in your app's URL on the App Store or on App Store Connect.
• Web:
  • Redirect URL - URL to redirect users to when they click the link on desktop. It can be your website or your app's page on store.

Upon app creation you will get:

• App ID — a short identifier used by the SDK.
• API Key — a authorization value used by the SDK.

The App ID and API Key are required by the SDK to call Detour's match endpoint.

4. Customize your Deferred Link

• You can extend your link with additional path segments or search params. For example https://<yourorg>.godetour.link/<hash>/path/to/page?param=value. It totally depends on what you want achieve, but base with hash generated by platform must stay the same.
• In Link settings section, you can customize the match behavior, such as the matching window, the threshold for probabilistic matching.
• In the Link Settings section, you can choose a strategy for passing search parameters to the Redirect URL for desktop users. This is useful when you need to dynamically redirect users to a specific page on your own website. The system will pass the search parameters from your link, and you must handle them within your application.

5. Install the SDK and configure

Install the React Native SDK (detailed in the SDK Installation doc) and set API_KEY + appID in the provider. Then handle navigation in your app.

6. Test the flow

• Click the link on a real device, go to the store, install, and open the app.
• The SDK will automatically call the match API and — if matched — returns the route in useDetourContext.

See the SDK usage and Testing & Troubleshooting page for platform-specific test instructions.