Release Engineering

This skill provides a comprehensive guide for managing the release lifecycle of the Upnext Android application. It encapsulates logic for GitHub Actions, Fastlane, Semantic Versioning, and troubleshooting.

🚀 Triggering a Release

The release pipeline is fully automated via GitHub Actions, prioritizing stability and reducing noise.

1. Nightly Scheduled Builds (CD)

Automated deployments run daily at 2:00 AM UTC via .github/workflows/deploy.yml. This batches all dependency updates and merges from the day into a single release.

Triggers:

• Schedule: cron: '0 2 * * *'
• Manual: workflow_dispatch (Run via GitHub Actions UI)

Process:

1. Versioning: Bumps VERSION_CODE and VERSION_NAME in version.properties.
2. Build: Generates signed Release Bundle (.aab).
3. Distribution: Fastlane uploads to Google Play Internal Track.
4. Tagging: Pushes a git tag (e.g., v2025.1.4-215).

Critical Implementation Detail (GitHub Releases): For scheduled builds, the workflow runs on the main branch ref (refs/heads/main), not the tag ref. To ensure a GitHub Release is attached to the newly created tag:

1. Fastlane updates version.properties.
2. The workflow explicitly reads VERSION_NAME and VERSION_CODE from the updated file.
3. It constructs the tag name (v{NAME}-{CODE}) and passes it to the softprops/action-gh-release action. Do not rely on github.ref for scheduled release tagging.

2. Pull Request Verification (CI)

Every Pull Request to main undergoes strict quality checks via .github/workflows/pull_request.yml.

Parallelized Verification Jobs: To minimize PR feedback time to ~5 minutes, tasks are executed concurrently across parallel GitHub Actions runners with 4 GB JVM heap tuning (-Dorg.gradle.jvmargs="-Xmx4096m -XX:+UseParallelGC"):

• code-quality: ktlintCheck, detekt, and testDebugUnitTest (Code Style, Static Analysis, Unit Tests).
• android-lint: lintDebug (Android Lint checks).
• build-validation: assembleDebug and assembleRelease (Build compilation and R8/ProGuard shrinking verification).
• ui-tests: connectedDebugAndroidTest on Android emulator.

Note on Signing in Pull Requests: PR builds do not have access to production signing keys. app/build.gradle is configured to fallback to debug signing automatically when the release keystore is missing. This allows assembleRelease to verify compilation and shrinking logic in CI without needing secrets.

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⏱️ CI/CD Minute Optimization

To prevent excessive consumption of GitHub Actions minutes, especially from automated dependency bots like Renovate, the following strategies are implemented:

1. Conditional Deployment (deploy.yml)

The nightly scheduled build incorporates a check_changes pre-job.

• It checks for commits since the latest git release tag (git rev-list "${LATEST_TAG}..HEAD" --count).
• If no new commits were merged into main since the last deployment tag, it skips the expensive deploy job entirely.
• Manual triggers (workflow_dispatch) bypass this check and force a deployment.

2. Renovate & PR Auto-Cancellation (renovate.json & pull_request.yml)

Dependency updates can cause massive CI fan-out. To mitigate this:

• rebaseWhen: conflicted: Renovate is configured to only rebase PRs if there is a git conflict, preventing it from auto-rebasing 10+ PRs whenever a single PR is merged into main.
• Update Grouping: Minor and patch dependency updates are grouped into a single PR (all-minor-patch), reducing PR volume.
• prConcurrentLimit: 3: Restricts the maximum number of simultaneous Renovate PRs.
• Concurrency Cancellation: pull_request.yml includes a concurrency block (cancel-in-progress: true). If a PR receives new commits (e.g. during a manual rebase), GitHub instantly cancels the running tests for the old commit, saving minutes.

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🛠 Manual Release & Debugging

You can run the release logic locally using Fastlane to verify builds before pushing.

Prerequisites

• fastlane installed.
• key.properties present (or environment variables set).
• service-account.json for Google Play API access.
• screenshot-framer (Python library) installed for generating marketing screenshots (do not use fastlane frameit).

Commands

Run Internal Track Deployment locally:

fastlane deploy_internal

Note: This will perform the build, signing, and upload to Google Play, and will commit/tag version bumps.

Run Specific CI Checks Locally:

# Verify Code Style
./gradlew ktlintCheck

# Verify Static Analysis
./gradlew detekt

# Verify Android Lint
./gradlew lintDebug

# Verify Release Build (Compilation + R8)
./gradlew assembleRelease

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📦 Versioning Strategy

Upnext uses Calendar Versioning (CalVer): YYYY.M.Patch

• Major: Year (e.g., 2025)
• Minor: Month (e.g., 1 for January)
• Patch: Incremental number for releases within that month.

File: version.properties

VERSION_CODE=214
VERSION_NAME=2025.1.4

Automated Bumping: The Fastfile (deploy_internal lane) automatically:

1. Increments VERSION_CODE for every build.
2. Sets VERSION_NAME to YYYY.M.1 (if new month) or YYYY.M.Patch+1 (if same month).

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🔧 Troubleshooting Guide

1. HTTP 403 / "Title Unknown" (Trakt API)

• Symptom: App runs, but data fails to load or showing titles are missing.
• Cause: Missing Trakt API Client ID/Secret in local.properties or Secrets.
• Fix: Ensure TRAKT_CLIENT_ID and TRAKT_CLIENT_SECRET are set in GitHub Actions Secrets.

2. Release Build "Missing Keystore"

• Symptom: assembleRelease fails with SigningConfig "release" is missing required property "storeFile".
• Context: This should NOT happen in CI anymore due to our fallback logic.
• Fix: Check app/build.gradle. Ensure the buildTypes.release block contains the fallback logic:

  if (signingConfigs.release.storeFile != null) { ... } else { signingConfig signingConfigs.debug }
  

3. Missing Resources / Permissions (Lint Failures)

• Symptom: lintDebug fails with "Missing permission" (e.g., WAKE_LOCK) or "Resource not found".
• Cause: Multi-module projects (core:common, core:data) often need their own AndroidManifest.xml and resource definitions to satisfy lint, even if the app module provides them.
• Fix: Add AndroidManifest.xml with <uses-permission> to the specific module (e.g., core/common/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml) or define the missing resource in that module.

4. Git Identity Issues

• Symptom: "Please tell me who you are" during CI/CD.
• Fix: The deploy.yml configures git user/email before tagging using github-actions[bot].

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📂 Key Files

• .github/workflows/deploy.yml: Nightly CD workflow.
• .github/workflows/pull_request.yml: PR CI workflow.
• fastlane/Fastfile: Build automation script.
• version.properties: App version definition.
• app/build.gradle: Build & signing configuration.