Wikimedia Apps/Team/Android/App hacking/Alpha build server

The Android app engineering team maintains a Cloud VPS instance that serves the latest alpha build of the Wikipedia app at https://android-builds.wmflabs.org.

Every 15 minutes, the instance executes a script to retrieve an APK and small JSON metadata file preserved as artifacts from the latest successful Jenkins build. The file is made available for download on the public-facing site, and the metadata is used to update the displayed time of the latest successful build.

The code to execute the above is maintained in the labs-tool-wikipedia-android-builds repo.

Maintenance
(Note: requires shell access and membership in the Mobile project.)

Access the machine via SSH at. The code repo lives at. Pull in code changes with a simple.

Occasionally the server will stop pulling in the latest builds; this can be fixed with a reboot.

After making changes it's good practice to make a note on the project Server Admin Log. To do this, join [ircs://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-cloud #wikimedia-cloud] and leave a note:. Stashbot will record your entry for posterity.