Native module authors: links and notifications at cold start

Libraries for React Native, Expo and Flutter often read what launched the app from the app delegate: the URL in launchOptions[.url], a notification in launchOptions[.remoteNotification], or a call to application(_:open:options:). Under scenes those arrive somewhere else, and a library that does not follow sees nothing.

What changes

Apple deprecated the launch option keys in iOS 26 and names where each one went:

The pages are linked from every SCN003 finding. For a notification the user tapped, the usual place is userNotificationCenter(_:didReceive:withCompletionHandler:) on a UNUserNotificationCenterDelegate set before launch finishes.

An example of what goes wrong: braze-inc/braze-react-native-sdk#334 reports that the initial push payload is null on a cold start under the scene life cycle.

What to do in a library

• Do not depend on the app delegate receiving links or launch options. Read the connection options when the scene connects, or ask the app to forward them from its scene delegate, as React Native 0.88 does with RCTLinkingManager.scene(_:openURLContexts:).
• Do not look up the window through UIApplication.shared.keyWindow, windows or the app delegate's window; use the scene of the view you present from.
• Test a cold start from a link and from a notification with a scene-based app, not only a link that arrives while the app runs.

What sdkbump does for libraries today

sdkbump 0.1 checks the app's own ios/ folder. Checking the iOS sources of each Pod, npm package and Flutter plugin, and naming the package a finding comes from, is planned for 0.2.