Meshtastic-Android/RELEASE_PROCESS.md

Meshtastic Release Process

This guide summarizes the steps for releasing new versions of Meshtastic Android and Desktop. The core flow is automated once a developer triggers the Create or Promote Release workflow; Microsoft Store and winget publishing run as separate workflows (see Desktop Store Publishing).

Overview

The entire release process is managed by a single GitHub Action: Create or Promote Release.

• Trigger: To start a new release or promote an existing one, a developer runs the workflow from the GitHub Actions tab.
• Inputs: The workflow requires the following inputs:
  1. base_version: The base version number you are releasing (e.g., 2.8.0).
  2. channel: The release channel you are targeting (internal, closed, open, or production).
  3. dry_run: If true, calculates the tag but does not push it or start the release (default: false).
  4. no_review_in_flight: Promotions only, and a hard gate. Before promoting, check Play Console → Publishing overview → Submission activity; if anything reads "In review", wait. Tick this box to confirm — the workflow fails without it, because each promotion creates a new Play submission that cancels and restarts any review already in flight. Internal releases and dry runs are exempt (Play internal testing skips full review).
• Automation: The workflow handles everything automatically:
  • Generates Changelog: Categorizes merged PRs by their labels (per .github/release.yml) into GitHub's auto-generated release notes. The internal draft's notes cover the PRs since the previous published pre-release; a production promotion rewrites them over the whole range since the previous production tag, with the metainfo <description> for the version as a Highlights section on top, and opens a PR folding the same notes into CHANGELOG.md. Between releases that file is only refreshed by dispatching the Update Changelog workflow by hand.
  • Tags & Builds (internal releases): Pushes the incremental tag first — there is no lint/test gate in this workflow, that's the separate PR/CI pipeline — then builds the Android bundle/APK and Desktop installers from that tag; if the build fails, an automatic cleanup job deletes the tag so a retry starts clean. Promotions skip this entirely and retag the already-built artifact (see below).
  • Deploys Android: Uploads the build to the correct Google Play track and attaches artifacts (.aab/.apk) to a GitHub Release. Each promotion also uploads the Play "What's new" text for every locale from fastlane/metadata/android/<locale>/changelogs/default.txt, which scripts/sync-play-changelog.py renders from the metainfo <description> and Crowdin translates.
  • Captures the store screenshots (internal releases): store-screenshots.yml runs the real debug apps from the tag, connected to Demo Mode's showcase mesh, on an emulator per flavor and on a virtual display for desktop, and attaches store-listing-screenshots-google-<versionCode>.zip, store-listing-screenshots-fdroid-<versionCode>.zip and the five desktop PNGs to the release. A set with a shot missing is replaced whole by the committed one, so the metainfo's screenshot URLs still resolve, and the job summary says which set went up. A failed capture never fails the release.
  • Publishes the Play listing: every promotion runs the play_listing lane with the tag's text for every locale and the google-flavor screenshots, as a dry run on closed and open and for real on production, held as "changes not sent for review". Production also opens a self-merging PR that writes the fdroid-flavor screenshots back into fastlane/, which F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid read from git, and the desktop set into desktopApp/packaging/linux/screenshots/.
  • Publishes docs: Every promotion dispatches docs-release.yml on the new tag (the tag is created with GITHUB_TOKEN, so its tag trigger never fires on its own).
  • Writes a checklist: The promotion run's summary lists what it did, what it dispatched, and what is still done by hand.
  • Deploys Desktop (internal releases): Builds native installers (DMG, MSI, EXE, DEB, RPM, AppImage) and Flatpak sources on a matrix of runners and attaches them to the GitHub Release.
• Changelog: Both the GitHub Release notes and CHANGELOG.md are generated from merged PR labels, not raw commit messages — label PRs correctly (enhancement, bugfix, etc.) to keep them accurate.
• Not part of this workflow: Firmware/hardware/device-links lists and Crowdin translations are kept current by a separate hourly workflow, scheduled-updates.yml ("Scheduled Updates (Firmware, Hardware, Translations)"), which opens its own PR rather than committing directly and enables auto-merge on it, so it lands through the merge queue once its checks pass — it never runs as part of a release. VERSION_NAME_BASE in config.properties is likewise never written by automation: a maintainer bumps it by hand in an ordinary PR (e.g. "chore: bump VERSION_NAME_BASE to 2.8.2 (#6820)") before starting a release for a new base version, paired with a matching <release> entry in desktopApp/packaging/linux/org.meshtastic.MeshtasticDesktop.metainfo.xml and its five <image> URLs moved to releases/download/v<version>/ — a pull-request.yml check fails the PR if either is missing. Create or Promote Release only reads VERSION_NAME_BASE/VERSION_CODE_OFFSET from config.properties to compute the build's version name/code.

Release Steps

1. Start an Internal Release

1. Navigate to the Actions tab in the GitHub repository.
2. Select the Create or Promote Release workflow.
3. Click the "Run workflow" dropdown.
4. Enter the base_version (e.g., 2.8.0).
5. Select the internal channel.
6. Click "Run workflow". (Tip: enable dry_run first to preview the tag that would be created without pushing anything.)

The workflow will:

1. Tag the current commit on the branch with an incremental internal tag (e.g., v2.8.0-internal.1) — no new commit is created; it tags whatever is already at HEAD.
2. Build & Deploy the built Android artifact to the Play Store Internal track.
3. Build Desktop native installers and Flatpak sources on macOS, Windows, and Linux runners.
4. Publish a draft pre-release on GitHub with all artifacts attached. It stays a draft until the first promotion (closed/open/production), at which point promote.yml un-drafts the same release object (retagging it to the new channel's tag) rather than creating a new one.

2. Promote to the Next Channel

Once an internal build has been verified, you can promote it to a wider audience.

1. Run the Create or Promote Release workflow again with the same base_version.
2. Select the next channel in the sequence (e.g., closed, then open).
3. The workflow will create a new incremental tag for that channel (e.g., v2.8.0-closed.1) and create a published pre-release on GitHub.

3. Promote to Production

After testing is complete on all pre-release channels, you can create the final public release.

1. Run the Create or Promote Release workflow one last time.
2. Use the same base_version.
3. Select the production channel.
4. The workflow will create a clean version tag (e.g., v2.8.0) and create a published, stable (non-prerelease) release on GitHub.

4. Post-Release

Start from the promotion run's summary: it lists what the run did and dispatched, and what remains by hand.

1. Verify Android: Check the Google Play Console to ensure the build is available on the correct track. A production promotion starts a staged rollout; complete it in the console.
2. Verify Desktop: Download and smoke-test at least one installer (DMG, MSI, or AppImage) from the GitHub Release.
3. Verify the desktop store submissions (production only — see below): the Microsoft Store submission in Partner Center, and the pull request opened against microsoft/winget-pkgs. Each store workflow warns in its summary when its secrets are not set and it submitted nothing.
4. Flathub (production only): bump the manifest in flathub/org.meshtastic.MeshtasticDesktop (see Flatpak below).
5. Post-Release Cleanup (production only): once Docs Release has published /vX.Y.Z/, dispatch post-release-cleanup.yml with confirm_deletion: true to delete the cycle's pre-releases and tags.
6. Merge: If a release/* branch was used for stabilization (CI runs the same PR checks against PRs targeting release/** as it does for main), merge it back into main now that production has shipped.

Desktop Store Publishing (production only)

Publishing a production release also fires two workflows, both keyed on the GitHub release: released event:

Workflow	Target	Credentials
msstore-publish.yml	Microsoft Store, via the Partner Center API using the MSStore CLI (#6864 replaced the deprecated microsoft/store-submission action)	MSSTORE_* secrets
winget-publish.yml	A PR against microsoft/winget-pkgs	WINGET_TOKEN PAT

Neither fires for drafts or pre-releases, so internal/closed/open promotions are ignored. released also fires when promote.yml flips an existing pre-release to a full release — but because that edit uses the workflow's own GITHUB_TOKEN, and events caused by GITHUB_TOKEN never start workflow runs, promote.yml dispatches both workflows explicitly as well. Each also accepts a manual workflow_dispatch with a tag, which is the retry path if either fails.

Desktop Release Details

Desktop native installers are built automatically as part of every internal release. There is no separate promotion flow for Desktop — installers are built once during the internal release and attached to the GitHub Release alongside Android artifacts; promotions to later channels reuse them.

Artifacts Produced

Platform	Format	Runner
macOS	.dmg	macos-latest
Windows	.msi, .exe	windows-latest
Linux (x86_64)	.deb, .rpm, .AppImage	ubuntu-24.04
Linux (ARM64)	.deb, .rpm, .AppImage	ubuntu-24.04-arm

macOS Code Signing & Notarization

macOS builds are signed and notarized when the following CI secrets are configured:

Secret	Source
APPLE_SIGNING_IDENTITY	Developer ID Application certificate (from Apple Developer account)
APPLE_ID	Apple ID email used for notarization
APPLE_APP_SPECIFIC_PASSWORD	App-specific password from appleid.apple.com
APPLE_TEAM_ID	10-character Apple Developer Team ID

Without these secrets, macOS builds are produced unsigned. Unsigned DMGs will trigger Gatekeeper warnings on end-user machines.

Version Alignment

Desktop uses the same version resolution chain as Android — both read VERSION_CODE_OFFSET and VERSION_NAME_BASE from config.properties, with CI passing the resolved values as environment variables. Version names are sanitized to strict X.Y.Z format for native installer compatibility.

Flatpak

Flatpak packaging is maintained externally at flathub/org.meshtastic.MeshtasticDesktop. It builds :desktopApp:packageUberJarForCurrentOS (not the native distribution pipeline) and handles JBR bundling; the AppStream metainfo and .desktop entry it installs come from this repo, out of the tag it builds. So the <release> notes ship with the tag, and the <screenshot> URLs name the desktop PNGs the internal cut attached to that version's release (releases/download/v<version>/), which Flathub's guidelines allow and a branch link would not. The Flathub bump is a hand-opened PR that moves four things together: the tag and commit, the Gradle distribution zip URL and sha256 (from the tag's gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.properties), and the release's flatpak-sources.json asset. Every flathubbot zip-bump PR so far has failed its test build; close them rather than merge them. The offline-build sources it consumes are captured in-repo by scripts/verify-flatpak/ (see its README).

Build Attestations & Provenance

All release artifacts are accompanied by explicit GitHub build attestations (provenance). This provides cryptographic proof that the artifacts were built by our trusted GitHub Actions workflow, ensuring supply chain integrity.

• You can view and verify provenance in the GitHub UI under each release asset.
• For more details, see GitHub's documentation on build provenance.