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Preparing Google Play (maintainers)

How to take a VocaPhone Android tag from GitHub Releases into Play Console. This is Console and listing work. The app is not listed on Play until that work is finished; there is no store URL to publish yet.

Android tags (android/v0.1.1, see releasing.md) attach a signed full-flavor AAB as vocaphone.aab. When PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON is set, the tag workflow uploads that AAB to Internal testing after the GitHub Release is published. The step is skipped if the secret is empty, so testers still get the GitHub APKs if Play is unset or fails. Stable tags go to Internal too: this tag workflow never uploads to production, and never to a wider track than Internal.

The Play Developer API account is vocaphone-play-upload@level-approach-506001-h1.iam.gserviceaccount.com. It can view this app and release it to testing tracks only.

What to upload

Artifact Flavor Use
vocaphone.aab full Play Internal testing (CI when the secret is set)
vocaphone.apk full Sideload / GitHub Release
vocaphone-fdroid.apk fdroid F-Droid rebuild verification only

Upload the full AAB only. Never upload the fdroid APK or an fdroid bundle to Play. The fdroid flavour drops prebuilt sherpa-onnx / ONNX Runtime so F-Droid can rebuild from source; Play testers should get the full catalog.

Package: com.vocahq.vocaphone. Current tree on main: versionCode 27, versionName 0.1.6. Keep that until the next Play-bound tag needs a bump; the release workflow refuses to publish when the tag is not android/v$versionName.

dependenciesInfo.includeInApk / includeInBundle stay false so AGP does not embed Play dependency metadata. Do not turn those back on.

Signing

The GitHub release keystore already signs vocaphone.apk, vocaphone-fdroid.apk, and vocaphone.aab. The public certificate SHA-256 is published with every release in SIGNING-CERTIFICATE-SHA256.txt (pinned in .github/workflows/android-release.yml).

In Play Console, use Play App Signing:

  1. Create the app with package com.vocahq.vocaphone.
  2. When asked for the upload key, register the existing release keystore (the one behind KEYSTORE_BASE64 / local android/keystore.properties).
  3. Let Google hold the app signing key. Keep the upload keystore for CI and for future AAB uploads.

Do not generate a second upload key unless the first is lost or rotated on purpose.

Track order

The tag workflow uses the Play API track name internal, for prerelease and stable tags alike. If that name is missing, qa is the only other name to try. Closed testing, open testing and production stay in Console. Promotion carries a rollout percentage and a staged-release halt behind it, which is a decision rather than a consequence of pushing a tag.

Permissions (Console justification notes)

The app does not use accessibility services or overlay / draw-over-other-apps.

Permission Why
RECORD_AUDIO Dictation while the user holds Dictate
FOREGROUND_SERVICE / FOREGROUND_SERVICE_MICROPHONE Ongoing recording notification Android requires for mic capture
CAMERA Optional gateway pairing via "Scan QR" only
INTERNET Optional gateway traffic and on-device model downloads
POST_NOTIFICATIONS The recording notification on Android 13+
MODIFY_AUDIO_SETTINGS Microphone routing (Bluetooth headset call mode, etc.)

Data safety

  • No analytics SDK and no third-party speech cloud.
  • Default path is on-device transcription; audio stays on the phone.
  • Audio leaves the device only if the user configures a gateway they control.
  • No accounts or subscription.

Use privacy.md and the Android README "What happens to your audio" section when filling the Data safety form. Play still requires a hosted privacy policy URL (a live page, not a repo-relative path).

Listing assets

Fastlane stays metadata only. It does not upload binaries. Copy lives under fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/:

  • title.txt, short_description.txt, full_description.txt
  • images/icon.png (512×512)
  • images/featureGraphic.png (1024×500 brand field + mark)
  • images/phoneScreenshots/ (five phone screenshots)
  • changelogs/<versionCode>.txt (e.g. changelogs/14.txt for beta.14)

Regenerate the feature graphic from brand assets when the mark changes:

python3 - <<'PY'
from PIL import Image
W, H, S = 1024, 500, 280
canvas = Image.new("RGB", (W, H), (0x0F, 0x6B, 0x57))
logo = Image.open("assets/vocaphone-logo-512.png").convert("RGBA").resize((S, S))
canvas.paste(logo, ((W - S) // 2, (H - S) // 2), logo)
canvas.save("fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/images/featureGraphic.png")
PY

Console checklist (still on you)

  1. Play developer account and app record for com.vocahq.vocaphone
  2. Play App Signing with the existing upload keystore
  3. Hosted privacy policy URL
  4. Data safety form (no analytics; on-device default; gateway optional)
  5. Content rating questionnaire
  6. Closed testing track before production
  7. Confirm Internal testing received vocaphone.aab from the tag workflow (upload by hand from the matching GitHub Release if the secret was unset)
  8. Confirm listing copy and graphics in Fastlane match what you paste into Console

Building the AAB locally

Same secrets as a beta APK. From android/:

export KEYSTORE_FILE=… KEYSTORE_PASSWORD=… KEY_ALIAS=… KEY_PASSWORD=…
./gradlew bundleFullRelease

Output under app/build/outputs/bundle/fullRelease/. Prefer the CI artifact from a version tag so the signing certificate matches the published fingerprint.

Related docs