Why does my beta need a setup? and why doesn't the beta have a release date?

[sethladd]

did I miss a step?

[leoafarias]

Hey @sethladd! Good questions - let me break down what's happening here.

Setup Issue

The "Need setup*" message means the Flutter SDK has been cloned/downloaded, but hasn't run its initial setup yet (downloading dependencies, tools, etc.).

In FVM v4, setup behavior depends on which command you used:

1. If you used fvm use beta:

   • Setup runs automatically by default in v4
   • You'd only skip setup if you explicitly pass --skip-setup
   • So v4 DOES solve this!

2. If you used fvm install beta:

   • Setup does NOT run by default
   • You need to pass the --setup flag: fvm install beta --setup
   • Or, if you already installed it, just run fvm use beta to trigger setup

Quick fix for your current situation:

# This will run setup for the beta channel
fvm use beta

Release Date Issue

When you use a channel directly (like fvm use beta without --pin), you're tracking the beta channel itself, not a specific published release. The SDK version shown is the current commit hash on that channel, which might not correspond to a published release in the Flutter releases registry.

That's why you don't see a release date - channels are continuously updated with new commits, and only some commits become official releases.

If you want to see release dates, use fvm use beta --pin instead, which pins to the latest published beta release:

fvm use beta --pin

This will pin to a specific beta release (like 3.x.x-beta.1), and you'll see the release date in fvm list.

Does that clear things up?

[sethladd]

how do I get fvm v4?

[leoafarias]

@sethladd it seems that the latest flutter version, something was moved to check if there is a version, but I have a PR for it, which will release on version 4.0.2