0023. Publishing to Google Play with fastlane
- Status: accepted
- Date: 2026-11-08
Context
Releasing 1.0 and 1.1 on Google Play meant downloading the AAB from the
workflow run, uploading it by hand to internal testing and copying the
release notes, texts and screenshots into Play Console. The store listing
already lives in the repository (fastlane/metadata/android/), in the layout
fastlane reads.
Decision
- fastlane (MIT, Ruby) uploads to Google Play through the Google Play
Developer API. It is release tooling only: pinned in
Gemfile.lock, never
shipped in the app. Usage statistics are turned off (opt_out_usage).
- Lanes (
fastlane/Fastfile):
internal: the AAB to internal testing, with its release notes
(changelogs/<version code>.txt) and the store listing; images and
screenshots are uploaded only when they changed;production: promotes a version from internal testing to production;listing: only the store texts, images and screenshots;check: checks the key, changing nothing.
- CI: after the GitHub Release, the Release workflow uploads the AAB to
internal testing. Production stays a deliberate step after checking the
internal build on a real device: the Google Play workflow, started by
hand, promotes a version or updates only the listing.
- Key: a Google Cloud service account with access to Pastello only, with
the permissions to release to testing and production and to edit the store
listing. Its JSON key is the
PASTELLO_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT secret of a
separate google-play environment, so the signing key and the Play key are
never in the same job. Locally, PASTELLO_PLAY_KEY points to the key file,
kept out of the repository.
Consequences
- A release is: merge the version bump, push the tag, check the internal
build, start the promotion.
- The store listing follows the repository: changes made only in Play
Console are overwritten by the next upload.
- A leaked Play key would allow publishing a build signed with our upload
key only if the signing key leaked too; on its own it allows changing the
listing and the tracks. The key can be revoked in Google Cloud.
Alternatives considered
- Manual uploads in Play Console: no new tooling, but slow and easy to
get wrong (notes, screenshots, version).
- A GitHub Action for the Play API (for example
r0adkll/upload-google-play): uploads the AAB, but not the listing in
fastlane’s layout, which the repository already uses.
- Uploading straight to production: faster, but skips the check on a
real device that the release checklist asks for.