Android Release Engineering

Purpose

Ensure safe Android production releases through readiness validation, staged rollout control, and explicit rollback policy.

Scope and authority

This skill is production gate authority for:

• release go/no-go decisions
• staged rollout and monitoring guardrails
• rollback criteria and incident gating

When not to use

• when the task is root-cause analysis without release decision pressure (android-debugging)
• when the task is primarily architecture refactoring strategy (android-architecture)

When to use

• release candidate readiness checks
• rollout and rollback strategy decisions
• cross-skill conflicts near production windows

Decision engine workflow

1. Assess release readiness and blocker status.
2. Validate build/signing/environment integrity.
3. Determine rollout branch by risk profile.
4. Define monitoring thresholds and rollback triggers.
5. Issue go/no-go with confidence and contingency path.

Branching decision tree

Branch A: risk profile

• high uncertainty or elevated incident risk:
  • reduce rollout exposure and tighten gates
• stable metrics and low blast radius:
  • proceed with normal staged rollout

Branch B: conflict with other skills

• if recommendation increases release risk beyond threshold:
  • defer or scope-limit change until post-release window

Quantitative gates

Use measurable release gates and label each as pass | at-risk | fail:

• crash-free sessions gate (absolute safety gate)
• ANR rate gate (absolute safety gate)
• startup/jank regression budget (relative to baseline)
• unresolved critical security gate (must pass)

If required metrics are missing, return a measurement-first plan before irreversible rollout decisions.

Uncertainty protocol

Always report confidence (High, Medium, Low). For medium/low confidence, provide safer fallback release options.

Confidence bands:

• High (>= 0.80)
• Medium (0.60-0.79)
• Low (< 0.60)

If confidence is medium/low:

• list unknowns that could alter go/no-go
• define minimum additional signals required to proceed
• provide a risk-reduced release plan (scope cut, slower rollout, feature-flag gating)

Output contract

Follow global order from ../../AGENTS.md:

1. Context and constraints
2. Decision and rationale
3. Alternatives considered
4. Tradeoffs
5. Risks and mitigations
6. Confidence and unknowns
7. Cross-skill impacts
8. Next implementation steps

Then include release-specific artifacts:

• Release readiness status
• Blocking and non-blocking risks
• Rollout plan
• Monitoring plan
• Rollback criteria
• Post-release checks

Cross-skill handoff payload

Use the standard payload defined in ../../AGENTS.md (section: Cross-skill handoff contract). Set requesting_skill to android-release-engineering.

Anti-pattern detection

• big-bang rollout without staged guardrails
• weak observability for crash/performance signals
• ambiguous rollback triggers
• signing or config drift across environments

Related resources

• references/release-gates.md
• templates/release-go-no-go.md