Promote Play Release Action

Typescript fork of https://github.com/boswelja/promote-play-beta-action

A GitHub Action that promotes Android app releases between different tracks on Google Play (e.g., from beta to production). This action is particularly useful when combined with the upload-google-play action to create a complete CI/CD pipeline for your Android app.

Features

• Promote releases between any Google Play tracks (e.g., internal testing → beta → production)
• Configure in-app update priority for promoted releases
• Control staged rollout percentage
• Simple integration with GitHub Actions workflows
• Support for both raw JSON and file-based service account credentials

Prerequisites

1. A Google Play Console account with appropriate permissions
2. A Google Play service account with the following permissions:
   • androidpublisher API access
   • Appropriate app-level permissions in Play Console
3. The service account JSON key file

Setup

1. Create a service account in the Google Play Console:

   • Go to Setup → API access
   • Create a new service account or select an existing one
   • Download the JSON key file

2. Add the service account JSON as a GitHub secret:

   • Go to your repository settings
   • Navigate to Secrets and Variables → Actions
   • Create a new secret named GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT with the contents of your JSON key file

Usage

Basic Example (Using Raw JSON)

name: Promote to Production
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      version:
        description: 'Version to promote'
        required: true

jobs:
  promote:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Promote to Production
        uses: kevin-david/promote-play-release@v1
        with:
          service-account-json-raw: ${{ secrets.GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}
          package-name: 'com.example.app'
          from-track: 'beta'
          to-track: 'production'

Basic Example (Using File-based Credentials)

name: Promote to Production
on:
  workflow_dispatch:
    inputs:
      version:
        description: 'Version to promote'
        required: true

jobs:
  promote:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - id: auth
        name: Authenticate to Google Cloud
        uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
        with:
          workload_identity_provider: <<project-identity>>
          service_account: <<service-account>>

      - name: Promote to Production
        uses: kevin-david/promote-play-release@v1
        with:
          service-account-json-file: ${{ steps.auth.outputs.credentials_file_path }}
          package-name: 'com.example.app'
          from-track: 'beta'
          to-track: 'production'

Complete CI/CD Pipeline Example

name: Android Release Pipeline
on:
  push:
    tags:
      - 'v*'

jobs:
  build-and-release:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      
      - name: Set up JDK
        uses: actions/setup-java@v4
        with:
          java-version: '17'
          distribution: 'temurin'
          
      - name: Build Release Bundle
        run: ./gradlew bundleRelease
        
      - name: Upload to Internal Testing
        uses: r0adkll/upload-google-play@v2
        with:
          serviceAccountJsonPlainText: ${{ secrets.GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}
          packageName: com.example.app
          releaseFiles: app/build/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab
          track: internal
          status: completed
          
      - name: Promote to Beta
        uses: kevin-david/promote-play-release@v1
        with:
          service-account-json-raw: ${{ secrets.GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT }}
          package-name: com.example.app
          from-track: internal
          to-track: beta
          user-fraction: 0.5  # 50% staged rollout
          inapp-update-priority: 3

Inputs

Input	Required	Default	Description
service-account-json-raw	No*	-	The raw JSON text of the service account private key
service-account-json-file	No*	-	Path to the service account JSON file (e.g., from google-github-actions/auth)
package-name	Yes	-	The package name (Application ID) of your Android app
from-track	No	beta	The source track to promote from
to-track	No	production	The target track to promote to
inapp-update-priority	No	0	In-app update priority (0-5, where 5 is highest)
user-fraction	No	1.0	Percentage of users to receive the update (0.0-1.0)

* Either service-account-json-raw or service-account-json-file must be provided. If both are provided, service-account-json-file takes precedence.

Track Types

Google Play offers several release tracks. Here are the common ones in order of increasing visibility:

1. internal - Internal testing track
2. alpha - Closed testing track
3. beta - Open testing track
4. production - Production track

Best Practices

1. Staged Rollouts: Use user-fraction for gradual rollouts to production to catch issues early
2. Update Priority: Set appropriate inapp-update-priority based on your release's importance
3. Track Progression: Follow a logical progression: internal → alpha → beta → production
4. Automation: Integrate this action into your CI/CD pipeline for automated releases
5. Authentication: Consider using google-github-actions/auth with service-account-json-file for better security practices

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.