ArcGIS Pro supports automatically installing and checking for updates for Pro Addins located at a given UNC Path via its 'Addin Folders' settings key (https://github.com/Esri/arcgis-pro-sdk/wiki/ArcGIS-Pro-Registry-Keys).
This is great and has worked out perfectly well for a very long time. However, as more organizations shift towards the cloud and start to phase our their use of 'Shared Folders' via UNC Paths, alternative solutions will be needed to continue to provide this functionality.
I would like to be able to reference a GitHub release URI for a Pro Addin in this Registry Key. By doing this, once we issue a release on Git, we could upload the binary *.esriaddin file as a release asset once we've built the solution.
The URI for the Registry Key would be something like: https://github.com/Esri/arcgis-pro-sdk-community-samples/releases/latest
Given that URI, Pro would need to then find the *.esriaddin file using GitHub's Release API and could then download and install the release automagically. An alternative more simplistic solution might be to simply allow us to specify static URI links, which would have the benefit of allowing developers to store their binary release files on cloud drive solutions like s3 buckets, OneDrive, Dropbox, etc.
As long as the link doesn't change and it resolves to the *.esriaddin file, it should *just work*. GitHub request aside, the static URI link is not really any different from the current workflow except that you would be downloading the solution over HTTP instead of copying the solution via UNC.
