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F-Droid publishing guide for Quick Search

This project ships two distribution flavors from one codebase:

Flavor Gradle task Use
standard (default) assembleStandardRelease Google Play, GitHub releases
fdroid assembleFdroidRelease F-Droid

The standard flavor keeps Google Play in-app review and in-app updates. The fdroid flavor uses the same app with no-op stubs, does not bundle Play Core libraries, uses the system font, and defaults web suggestions to off.

Build locally

./gradlew assembleFdroidRelease

APK output: app/build/outputs/apk/fdroid/release/

./gradlew assembleStandardRelease

Upstream metadata (in this repo)

F-Droid reads listing text and graphics from:

fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/

Keep the app listing text in this fastlane structure. Do not duplicate summary or full description in fdroiddata metadata; F-Droid pulls that text from this repo.

When releasing, update versionCode / versionName in app/build.gradle.kts, add changelogs/<versionCode>.txt, and tag the release commit. If you keep the current F-Droid-specific tagging scheme, use tags like 3.7-fdroid.

Submit to F-Droid

  1. Compliance — MIT license, public source, FOSS dependencies in the fdroid variant. See the inclusion policy.

  2. Request for Packaging — Open an issue: https://gitlab.com/fdroid/rfp/-/issues/new
    Include app id com.tk.quicksearch, source URL, license, and confirm you approve inclusion.

  3. fdroiddata metadata — Fork https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroiddata and add metadata/com.tk.quicksearch.yml. A starter file is in docs/fdroiddata-example.yml. Keep that file focused on build/update metadata and anti-features; summary/description stay in fastlane. The important build block:

    Builds:
  - versionName: '3.6'
    versionCode: 65
    commit: <full-git-sha-for-that-release>
    gradle:
      - fdroid

  4. Anti-features (expected) — declare NonFreeNet for the optional proprietary network services this app can use (AI providers and user-enabled web suggestions/search integrations). F-Droid maintainers may request additional labels for optional proprietary app/service integrations depending on their review.

  5. Test — Use fdroidserver or fdroiddata CI: fdroid lint com.tk.quicksearch, fdroid build com.tk.quicksearch.

  6. Merge request — Submit to fdroiddata; after merge, the app is built on F-Droid’s infrastructure (typically 24–48 hours to appear). When opening the MR, switch to the App Inclusion template, follow its instructions, and check the required task boxes.

Checklist prep

The current repo already covers most of the App Inclusion template:

  • fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/ exists with summary, full description, screenshots, icon, and changelog text.
  • docs/fdroiddata-example.yml includes AutoUpdateMode, tag-based UpdateCheckMode, issue tracker, website, and author contact fields.
  • The existing tagged F-Droid release is 3.6-fdroid.
  • Local release verification completed with ./gradlew assembleFdroidRelease and ./gradlew assembleStandardRelease.

Manual items that still happen outside this repo:

  • Open the RFP issue and state that you are the upstream author and approve inclusion.
  • Reference the RFP issue (and any fdroiddata issue) in the merge request body.
  • Wait for fdroid build and the GitLab pipelines to pass on the fdroiddata merge request.

For copy-paste issue and merge-request text, use docs/FDROID_SUBMISSION_TEMPLATE.md.

Release checklist

  • Bump versionCode and versionName in app/build.gradle.kts
  • Add fastlane/metadata/android/en-US/changelogs/<versionCode>.txt
  • Tag the F-Droid release commit (current scheme: <versionName>-fdroid)
  • ./gradlew assembleFdroidRelease succeeds
  • ./gradlew assembleStandardRelease succeeds
  • Update fdroiddata Builds entry (or rely on auto-update after first inclusion)

Reproducible builds

Optional but recommended. F-Droid can verify that their APK matches yours when you publish signed release binaries and enable reproducible build metadata in fdroiddata. See https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Reproducible_Builds/