fdroid-repo-ci/README.md

# fdroid-repo-ci

Shared tooling to sign a prebuilt APK, build a signed F-Droid repo index over
it, and publish the result to an S3-compatible bucket -- consumed as a
composite action by whichever repository currently holds the signing keys
and runs the publish. Which repository that is has changed more than once,
so nothing here names it; see "Not hard-coded" below.

Same shape as [weblib-ci], and public for the same measured reason: a
private repository cannot be consumed cross-repo via `uses:` on this Gitea
instance (see weblib-ci's README) -- every cross-repo form fails while the
repo being referenced is private, and only the full-URL form works once it
is public.

**Nothing secret belongs here, ever.** Keys, keystores, credentials, bucket
names and hostnames all live in the private repo that consumes this one and
arrive as inputs -- arguments and environment variables, never committed
here.

## What is here

| script | what it does |
|---|---|
| `next-version-code.sh` | print the next monotonic `versionCode` for an application id, read from a repo index -- called before the build, CI and a manual build alike (see "One versionCode rule" below) |
| `sign-apk.sh` | check alignment, then sign a prebuilt unsigned release APK with a keystore the caller supplies |
| `fdroid-update.sh` | run `fdroid update` over a `repo/` directory of already-signed APKs and produce the signed index |
| `publish.sh` | upload the resulting repo tree to an S3-compatible bucket -- files first, index last, and refuses to overwrite an already-published APK (see "Publish ordering and safety" below) |
| `with-nixpkgs.sh` | run a command with one or more nixpkgs packages on PATH, pinned to the revision in `nixpkgs-pin` |
| `check_zip_alignment.py` | the alignment check `sign-apk.sh` runs before signing (see "Align before sign" below) |
| `next_version_code.py` | the stdlib-only implementation `next-version-code.sh` wraps (index read, arithmetic) |
| `action.yml` | the composite action a consumer includes to get all of the above |

Deliberately **not** in scope: fetching the APK. That needs an upstream
credential and is the consumer's business, not the tooling's -- which also
keeps this repo from knowing which upstreams exist.

All of it is standard library / plain bash plus the pinned tools below. They
are *run*, not built, so this repo has no flake -- see "Pinning nixpkgs"
below for what that costs and why it is still the right call here.

## Using it

```yaml
- uses: actions/checkout@v4
- id: ci
  uses: https://git.chaosbit.de/weblib/fdroid-repo-ci@main

- run: |
    version_code=$(bash "${{ steps.ci.outputs.path }}/next-version-code.sh" \
      "$FDROID_REPO_INDEX_URL" "$APPLICATION_ID")
    echo "version_code=$version_code" >> "$GITHUB_ENV"
    # ... feed $version_code into whatever builds app-release-unsigned.apk

- env:
    APK_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.APK_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD }}
  run: |
    bash "${{ steps.ci.outputs.path }}/sign-apk.sh" \
      app-release-unsigned.apk app-release.apk \
      "$APK_KEYSTORE" release-key APK_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD

- env:
    INDEX_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.INDEX_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD }}
  run: |
    bash "${{ steps.ci.outputs.path }}/fdroid-update.sh" \
      "$FDROID_REPO_ROOT" "$INDEX_KEYSTORE" repo-key INDEX_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD

- env:
    AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: ${{ secrets.PUBLISH_ACCESS_KEY_ID }}
    AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: ${{ secrets.PUBLISH_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY }}
  run: |
    bash "${{ steps.ci.outputs.path }}/publish.sh" \
      "$FDROID_REPO_ROOT/repo" "$BUCKET" "$S3_ENDPOINT_URL"
```

**Use the full URL, `https://git.chaosbit.de/weblib/fdroid-repo-ci@main`, not
`weblib/fdroid-repo-ci@main`.** Measured on weblib-ci (weblib-archive#44):
the bare `owner/repo` form resolves against the instance's default actions
URL rather than this host and fails outright. The full-URL form is also the
only one that works while a referenced repo is private -- irrelevant for
*this* repo, which is public on purpose, but relevant for whatever repo is
consuming it, since that one holds the keys.

`$APK_KEYSTORE`/`$INDEX_KEYSTORE`/`$FDROID_REPO_ROOT`/`$BUCKET`/
`$S3_ENDPOINT_URL`/`$FDROID_REPO_INDEX_URL`/`$APPLICATION_ID` above are the
consumer's own paths and values -- nothing in this repo defaults or hints at
them. Env var *names* like `APK_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD` are the consumer's choice
too, not a convention this repo imposes: `sign-apk.sh` and `fdroid-update.sh`
each take the name of the environment variable to read a password from as an
argument, specifically so two different keystores in the same job (the APK
key and the separate repo index key -- see below) never have to share one
variable name.

## One `versionCode` rule, shared by CI and a manual build (fdroid-repo-ci#6)

Two implementations of "the next version code" is the exact failure mode
`next-version-code.sh` exists to avoid, so both CI and a manual build call
this one script rather than each computing their own:

```
candidate  = whole minutes since 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z
published  = highest versionCode already in the repo index for this applicationId
result     = max(candidate, published + 1)
```

Minutes, not seconds or raw Unix time: `versionCode` is a signed 32-bit int,
and this scheme does not exhaust it for 4,082 years, against 67 years for
seconds and 11 for Unix time. The clamp against `published` exists because
minute granularity means two builds started in the same minute would
otherwise compute the same number -- and it also covers a clock stepping
backwards or an old commit being rebuilt, both of which would otherwise
produce a number lower than one a device has already seen.

**The clamp is monotonic against *observed* state, not monotonic by
construction.** It does not close the race where two jobs start in the same
minute, both read the same `published` value, both compute the same next
versionCode, and both build and publish -- the window is the whole build,
not just the clock read, since the version code has to be baked into the APK
before it exists. Nothing in `next-version-code.sh` can prevent that.
`publish.sh`'s APK-existence check (below) is the other half of this: it
cannot stop the wasted build, but it turns the collision from a silent,
permanent wrong state into a loud failure at the last moment, when the
information is finally reliable.

Takes an index-v2.json URL or local file path, and an application id;
prints the integer and nothing else, so a caller does
`versionCode=$(next-version-code.sh "$URL" "$APPLICATION_ID")`. The URL form
needs no credentials, since both this repo and the F-Droid repo it reads are
public -- the point of weblib-viewer#16's "buildable when CI is down". Fails
loudly (non-zero exit, nothing on stdout) if the index cannot be read; an
application id with no entry at all in the index is not an error -- that is
simply the first-ever publish for a channel, and yields the bare candidate.

## Publish ordering and safety (fdroid-repo-ci#5, fdroid-repo-ci#6)

An F-Droid repo is a signed index plus the files it names. `publish.sh`
uploads in two passes, unconditionally: every non-index file first, the
index (`index-v1.json(.asc)`, `index-v2.json`, `entry.json`, `entry.jar`,
matched only at the top level of the tree) last. A publish interrupted
anywhere in the first pass leaves the repo describing the old state a little
longer; it can never leave an index naming files that 404. Credentials are
verified with a real authenticated call (`head-bucket`) before either pass,
rather than merely checking that the environment variables are non-empty --
an unusable-but-present credential failing halfway through is exactly how a
partial (and potentially index-first) upload happens.

Before pass 1, `publish.sh` also checks every local `*.apk`'s destination
key with `head-object` and refuses the whole publish if any of them already
exists -- the safeguard `next-version-code.sh`'s clamp cannot provide on its
own (see above). This does not prevent the wasted build behind a same-minute
collision; it prevents the collision from silently corrupting the repo.

## Align before sign, and how "no `zipalign`" was verified

`zipalign` then `apksigner`. Signing first and aligning after is the old
`jarsigner`-era order and invalidates an `apksigner`-era (v2/v3) signature,
because that scheme signs the exact bytes of the packaged zip and alignment
padding changes those bytes.

**`apksigner` is a standalone nixpkgs attribute** (`nixpkgs#apksigner`,
verified at 35.0.6). **`zipalign` is not** -- it exists only inside
`androidenv`'s composed build-tools, which pulls a full versioned Android SDK
and its licence machinery for one binary. Before accepting that as a
dependency, three things were measured rather than assumed:

1. **Google's own docs** (developer.android.com/tools/zipalign): "If you
   build using Android Studio, which uses the Android Gradle plugin (AGP),
   this is done automatically. In this case, you should still use zipalign
   to verify that the APK is aligned, but you don't need to align it." AGP is
   what `flutter build apk` (or any Gradle-based Android build) drives
   underneath, so this applies to any such build's output, not just
   Android-Studio-initiated ones.
2. **`fdroidserver` 2.4.3's own source never calls `zipalign`, anywhere** --
   grepped across all 38 of its modules. Its APK-signature-copying code
   (`apksigcopier.py`, used for reproducible-build verification, a different
   flow than binary-repo mode) implements realignment itself in pure Python
   against the zip format directly, rather than shelling out to the
   `zipalign` binary.
3. **`apksigner` does not check or enforce alignment at all**, in either
   direction -- measured directly: a deliberately misaligned fixture zip
   (including a `.so` misaligned to the stricter 4096-byte boundary) was
   signed and then verified with `apksigner verify --verbose`, and the
   output carried no warning about alignment whatsoever.

**Confidence: high** that a Gradle/AGP-built unsigned release APK is already
aligned, resting on (1) and (2) above. **Not independently confirmed**
against a real `flutter build apk` output run in this environment -- that
build was judged too expensive to attempt for this measurement. A sibling
repo's own CI proposal for building the Flutter app was rejected on the same
"the toolchain is too large to pull on every push" grounds this pin sidesteps
(composing a multi-platform Android SDK plus NDK pulls tens of gigabytes),
and the host available for this measurement had well under that in free
disk space.

Point (3) is why this repo does not simply trust point (1) and move on:
since nothing downstream complains about misalignment either, a build that
stopped emitting aligned output would fail silently -- an APK that signs and
verifies fine but behaves badly (or refuses to install) on a real device.
`check_zip_alignment.py`, a few lines against the standard library `zipfile`
module, checks every uncompressed entry of the APK `sign-apk.sh` is asked to
sign, and refuses to sign one that fails it. If that check ever legitimately
trips, the fix is to add `androidenv`'s `zipalign` as a dependency here, not
to weaken or remove the check.

## The repo index key is not the APK signing key

Binary-repo mode (every APK arrives already signed) means `fdroid update`
reads each APK's existing signature and never touches an app's own signing
key. It signs the **index** with a separate key of its own -- `fdroid-update.sh`
takes its own keystore/alias/password arguments, deliberately unrelated to
`sign-apk.sh`'s. Conflating the two would mean one compromised key
undermines both the apps and the index that vouches for them.

`fdroid-update.sh` writes `<repo-root>/config.yml` itself, on every run,
using fdroidserver's own `{env: VARNAME}` indirection for both passwords --
the exact mechanism its `common.py` implements *specifically so config.yml
can be safely git-managed*: "it is a good idea to manage config.yml (WITHOUT
PASSWORDS!) in git." A caller never has to know or hand-write fdroidserver's
config format.

## Pinning nixpkgs

`fdroidserver`'s output feeds a *signed index*, so an unpinned or
channel-drifting nixpkgs is a worse trade here than for a disposable test
job. This repo carries a `nixpkgs-pin` file -- one line, a 40-character
nixpkgs revision -- and `with-nixpkgs.sh` refuses to run at all if that file
is missing or malformed, rather than silently falling back to an unpinned
`nix shell nixpkgs#foo`, which re-resolves the registry and fetches whatever
the channel currently points at.

This is deliberately **not** the same mechanism as [weblib-ci]'s
`with-nixpkgs.sh`, which reads the *consuming* repo's `flake.lock`. This repo
has no flake (see weblib-ci#9 for the same tension in that repo: a
`flake.lock` existing only to hold one revision string), and per this repo's
own originating issue, the repo that consumes it holds signing keys and is
not guaranteed to be a flake either -- reading a caller's `flake.lock` the
way weblib-ci's script does would not even find one here. So the pin travels
with *this* repo instead, in a file named `nixpkgs-pin` on purpose: it is the
exact fallback weblib-ci#9 proposes adding to the shared script (flake.lock
present -> today's behaviour there; else `nixpkgs-pin` -> a bare revision;
else fail loudly). If that lands, this repo already speaks its format and
nothing here needs to change.

A `nixpkgs-pin` file has no `nix flake update` -- it is bumped by hand.
Accepted here for the same reason weblib-ci#9 accepted it for a
stdlib-only test suite, generalised: the alternative (a flake that builds
nothing, just to hold a lockfile) is a lot of structure for one string, and a
genuinely broken pinned nixpkgs would be caught immediately by this repo's
own test suite.

`fdroidserver` is in nixpkgs as `fdroidserver`, verified at 2.4.3.
`publish.sh` uses `awscli2` for the same S3-compatible upload every consumer
here needs, resolved through the same pin.

## Testing

```bash
bash run_tests.sh
```

83 assertions across seven suites offline (~20s on a warm nix store), plus 5
more that only run against a real bucket (see below):

* `test_check_zip_alignment.py` -- pure standard library, no nix, no
  network at all; builds an aligned and a misaligned fixture zip by hand and
  checks both directions, including the 4096-byte boundary specific to `.so`
  entries.
* `test_next_version_code.py` -- pure standard library too, testing
  `next_version_code.py` as a subprocess against fixture index-v2.json files
  written to a temp dir: no prior build, a lower/equal/higher prior (the
  clock-went-backwards case), several versions at once, a version entry with
  no versionCode, an application id missing from the index entirely (not an
  error), and an unreadable/malformed index (fails loudly, nothing on
  stdout). "now" is pinned via an undocumented env var seam so the expected
  candidate is a fixed number.
* `test_with_nixpkgs.sh` -- offline; every way the pinning wrapper is
  supposed to refuse rather than silently degrade (missing pin, malformed
  pin, too few arguments). Does not exercise the happy path of actually
  resolving a `github:nixos/nixpkgs/...` reference automatically, since that
  needs network (or an already-warm local cache) the same way weblib-ci's
  own `with-nixpkgs.sh` does, and that repo does not automate a test for it
  either. It was checked by hand instead.
* `test_sign_apk.sh` and `test_fdroid_update.sh` -- full end-to-end runs
  against a throwaway keystore generated fresh per run, real `apksigner`
  and `fdroid update`. Needs the pinned toolchain to be resolvable (locally
  cached, or fetched once over the network); nothing beyond that.
* `test_next_version_code.sh` -- the real `next-version-code.sh` CLI, through
  `with-nixpkgs.sh`: argument count, a local index file end to end, a
  missing application id, a missing/malformed local file, and an
  unreachable URL (`http://127.0.0.1:1`, the same closed-port trick
  `test_publish.sh` uses) -- proving the wrapper's argv/exit-code/stdout
  contract, not just the Python module's arithmetic.
* `test_publish.sh` -- argument/credential validation, `--dry-run` command
  construction (now two commands, files then index, and asserted in that
  order), and a real invocation against a closed local port
  (`127.0.0.1:1`), fully offline. Also runs `test_s3_stub.py`, a
  same-repo, HEAD-only local HTTP stub, to prove the credential check is a
  real authenticated call (a wrong bucket is rejected) and that an
  already-published APK is refused before any upload, with a negative
  control proving a non-colliding APK does not trip the same check. The
  actual upload path -- and the two-pass *ordering* of real uploads, which
  nothing offline can see -- is exercised only by the opt-in live round trip
  below, matching the constraint that only `publish.sh` needs network in the
  first place.

`test_publish.sh`'s live section (skipped by default; needs
`FDROID_CI_LIVE_BUCKET`, `FDROID_CI_LIVE_ENDPOINT` and real credentials) adds
5 more assertions against a real bucket: the round trip itself; the index
object provably absent while the file object is already present at the one
point in the middle of a real publish that the ordering guarantee depends on
(observed via a same-process synchronization hook `publish.sh` exposes only
for this, `PUBLISH_SH_TEST_HOOK_BETWEEN_PASSES` -- deliberately not a poll
racing a background upload from outside, since that is exactly the
flakiness fdroid-repo-ci#5 warned against); both objects reading back
byte-identical; a second publish refused when it would overwrite a
real, already-published APK; and that APK's bytes unchanged afterwards.

No `.gitea/workflows` runs this, on the same reasoning weblib-ci#9 recorded:
run it by hand before pushing. If that changes for weblib-ci it should
probably change here too, at the same time.

## Not hard-coded

No bucket name, repo URL, app id, keystore path, or channel name or count --
a consumer may have one publish target or several, under whatever names it
likes; nothing here assumes "release" and "dev", or that there are exactly
two. No consumer is named anywhere either: the repository that runs the
publish has already changed twice during design, so naming one would be
wrong again shortly.

The one exception is deliberate and unavoidable: **this repository's own
address** appears in the `uses:` examples above, because that is what a
consumer has to type. Those lines are what will need editing if this repo
moves organisation -- nothing else should.

[weblib-ci]: https://git.chaosbit.de/weblib/weblib-ci