Google Play Store Deployment

Before deploying the mobile app to the Google Play Store, the back end has to be deployed to a server — see Back End Deployment. Configure the frontend to point at that server via frontend/.env (see Installation Instructions).

WARNING

expo eject (Expo's old managed → bare workflow migration command) is deprecated. The project no longer commits a generated android/ directory; native project files are generated on demand (e.g. via npx expo prebuild or implicitly by npx expo run:android).

Requirements

• Google Developer Account
• An Android upload keystore (.jks file)

Signing

Release builds (package ch.uzh.ifi.news, see app.json) must be signed with an upload key before they can be submitted to the Play Store. Generate a Java KeyStore file and reference it via the signingConfig block in android/app/build.gradle, so every release build is signed consistently with the same key.

Building the App

cd frontend
npm install --legacy-peer-deps

# Generates the native android/ project from app.json + config plugins
npx expo prebuild --platform android

# Build a signed release
cd android
./gradlew bundleRelease   # AAB, for Play Store submission
# or: ./gradlew assembleRelease   # APK

The build output is an .aab (App Bundle, preferred for Play Store) or .apk under android/app/build/outputs/.