Wikimedia Apps/Team/Android/Release process

This page documents the release process for the Mobile Apps Team.

Alpha releases
Not currently building, but should theoretically: Alpha apks are built automatically after patches get merged to master on the half hour mark and are available at android-builds.wmflabs.org.

Beta releases
Beta releases get pushed to the store more often and earlier than production releases. Therefore, we bump the version code usually before we build a beta release (but not usually for production).
 * 1) Bump version code
 * 2) +2 in Gerrit
 * 3) Build apk:
 * 4) Test the apk. Install it via  . The   option is useful when testing the upgrade path since it doesn't clear the data.
 * 5) Copy the file to releases.wikimedia.org:
 * 6) Publish the apk on Google Play Publisher.
 * 7) When publishing you want to update the What's New section. You can use this command to compile a list of changes in Git since the last beta release:
 * 8) Push the release tag to gerrit remote:
 * 9) Email mobile-l about the release.
 * 10) Wait ~2 hours and then see the live update in Google Play Store.
 * 1) Email mobile-l about the release.
 * 2) Wait ~2 hours and then see the live update in Google Play Store.

Production releases

 * 1) Make sure you have checked out to the correct commit in Git. Usually that is where the latest beta release is, but there can be exceptions.
 * 2) Build apk:   This will produce two apks:   for uploading to Google Play, and   for uploading to releases.wikimedia.org.
 * 3) Test the apks. Install them via.
 * 4) Copy the file to releases.wikimedia.org:
 * 5) Publish the "r" apk on Google Play Publisher.
 * 6) When publishing you want to update the What's New section. You can use this command to compile a list of changes in Git since the last production release (Note that it's slightly different than for beta):
 * 7) Push the release tag to gerrit remote:
 * 8) Add an entry to the app release history.
 * 9) PM emails mobile-l.
 * 10) Wait ~2 hours and then see the live update in Google Play Store.

Custom releases
Custom releases are done by the partners team. For custom releases there are two options: The process is pretty much the same for both options, except when building the apk.
 * Custom channel
 * Custom channel + custom application ID
 * This acts like a different app, so it can be installed side by side with our production Wikipedia app.
 * 1) Make sure you have checked out to the correct commit in Git. Usually that is where the latest production release is, but there can be exceptions.
 * 2) Build apk:
 * 3) * Custom channel:
 * 4) * Custom channel + custom application ID:
 * 5) ** The application ID will be
 * 6) Test the apk. Install it via.
 * 7) If needed, copy the file to a subfolder in releases.wikimedia.org:
 * 8) Push the release tag to gerrit remote: