Android CI and binary releases

[mhsmith]

Proposal:

At the PyCon US language summit a couple of months ago, we discussed adding the following features to the mobile platforms:

• Continuous integration on GitHub Actions
• Official binary releases on python.org

Details of the discussion are in the link below, but I think it's fair to say that there was a consensus in favor of both features. I've talked about this with @hugovk, and he's open to including Android binaries in the 3.14 release series, as long as the process is well-automated, and there are no objections from the core team.

I've created the following PRs to implement this:

• gh-137242: Add Android CI job #137186

  • Add a script which builds and tests on Android, and invoke it from the CI workflow.
    • This takes about 20 minutes, which is slightly faster than the existing Windows free-threading job. So the overall workflow is not slowed down.

• Add Android support release-tools#265

  • Invoke the same script from the existing workflow which builds the source and docs releases.
    • Again, there is a slower existing job, so the overall workflow is not slowed down.
    • The Android release artifacts are attached to the workflow, from where the release manager can download them. This will be the only additional manual step required in the release process.
  • Add Android support to run_release.py and add_to_pydotorg.py.

• Add Android release support pythondotorg#2762

  • Describes some one-time setup which will need to be done manually through the Django admin interface, and updates the test data to show what that would look like.
  • Adds an explanatory note at the top of the Android downloads page.

• PEP 101: Add Android peps#4541

  • Updates the release checklist.

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

• The Python Language Summit 2025: Python on Mobile - Next Steps

Linked PRs

• gh-137242: Add Android CI job #137186

[freakboy3742]

It probably goes without saying, but I'm +1 to this.

[mhsmith]

I've now added the website release functionality, and updated the PR list above.

[mhsmith]

I've now updated the list above to include a PEP 101 PR, which I think is the last piece required to make this happen.