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play-store-listing

Deployment & operations

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Updated 10-16 18:29

About this skill

Automate this: /mobile-release:preflight runs this audit against the real project, no credentials needed. The App content forms it checks are human-only — see skills/release-automation/references/human-only.md §4 for what an agent can prepare for each instead.

Audit a Google Play listing and its policy declarations before submission. Run every section in order and report PASS, WARN, or FAIL for each. Do not ask which sections to run — run them all. Load only the reference you need for detail.

Confidence marks used throughout this skill and its references: [verified] — read off a primary vendor source on 2026-08-05. [snippet] — secondary source only, plausible but unconfirmed. [unverified] — not confirmed anywhere; run the check given before relying on it.

Audit process:

  1. Read the manifest and Gradle config. Extract applicationId, versionCode, versionName, targetSdk, and every uses-permission. Everything below depends on these.
  2. Walk the pre-submission checklist below, section by section.
  3. Check assets and metadata against references/asset-specs.md. Every number there is unverified — surface that to the user, do not present specs as authoritative.
  4. Check the App content declarations using references/app-content.md.
  5. Check restricted permissions against references/restricted-permissions.md. Propose the narrower API alternative before proposing a declaration form.
  6. Check the launch timeline using references/launch-timeline.md — a new personal developer account cannot reach production quickly.
  7. Preempt rejections using references/rejection-reasons.md.
  8. Produce the summary table in the Output Format below.

Uploading the binary is the play-store-publish skill. This skill is about whether pressing publish is safe.

Contents

  • Pre-submission checklist
  • Confidence and freshness
  • Output Format
  • References

Pre-submission checklist

1. Build and technical gates

  • Artifact is a signed .aab (mandatory for new apps since August 2021; TV apps since June 2023)
  • versionCode is higher than every code ever uploaded to this app
  • targetSdk meets the current Play floor — from 2026-08-31, API 36 for phone/tablet, 35 for Wear OS and Automotive, 34 for TV and XR. An extension to 2026-11-01 can be requested per-app in Play Console
  • isMinifyEnabled is on for release, and mapping.txt will be uploaded
  • No android:debuggable="true", no cleartext traffic, no exported components that should not be
  • No hardcoded API keys or secrets in the bundle
  • Total install download is under the 4 GB cap (bundletool get-size total --apks=app.apks)
  • App launches on a clean install and the core feature is reachable in the first minute

2. Store listing content

  • App name, short description, full description present for the default locale and every locale you ship
  • Every non-default locale is complete — a partially translated listing looks broken, not multilingual
  • No placeholder text, no "coming soon", no Lorem Ipsum
  • Title is not keyword-stuffed and contains no ranking claims ("#1", "Best")
  • Icon, feature graphic, and phone screenshots uploaded (see references/asset-specs.md)
  • Screenshots show the actual current build — stale UI is a misleading-metadata rejection
  • Screenshots contain no fake ratings, no app-store badges, no device frames on Wear
  • Category and tags match what the app does

3. Promo video (optional, but constrained)

The promo video is a YouTube URL typed into Play Console, never a file upload. The Publishing API Listing.video field is "URL of a promotional YouTube video for the app" (verified from the discovery document); fastlane supply stores it as video.txt.

  • Full youtube.com/watch?v=… link, not a youtu.be short link, not a playlist or channel URL
  • Video is public, embeddable, and not age-restricted
  • Monetization is off so no ad plays before your app's video
  • Feature graphic exists — it is what Play shows when the video does not autoplay

All bullets in this section except the API field description are [snippet], unverified.

4. App content declarations

Play Console → App content. Every one of these blocks production until complete.

  • Privacy policy URL — publicly accessible, stable, covers this app specifically
  • Data safety form — matches actual app and third-party SDK behaviour
  • Content rating (IARC) questionnaire — completed, and re-answered if content changed
  • Ads declaration — drives the "Contains ads" badge
  • Target audience and content — any under-13 band puts the app into Designed for Families with stricter ad and content rules
  • Conditional forms as applicable: government apps, financial features, health, news, data deletion

Detail and the SDK-audit method: references/app-content.md.

5. Restricted permissions

For every uses-permission in the manifest, ask: does Play require a declaration form for this, and is there a narrower API that avoids it?

  • QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES — replace with <queries> elements unless the app is an accessibility, browser, device-management, security, or antivirus app
  • ACCESS_BACKGROUND_LOCATION — only where background location is a core feature; declaration plus a demo video required
  • MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE — replace with the Storage Access Framework or MediaStore unless the app is a file manager, backup, antivirus, document manager, on-device search, encryption, or migration tool
  • SMS / Call Log group — only for the registered default SMS, Phone, or Assistant handler, and default-handler status must be requested before the permissions
  • READ_MEDIA_IMAGES / READ_MEDIA_VIDEO — replace with the Android photo picker for one-time or limited access
  • USE_EXACT_ALARM — limited eligible use cases; prefer user-granted SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM gated on alarmManager.canScheduleExactAlarms()
  • AD_ID — must be declared in the manifest for API 33+ and in the Data safety form
  • Anything unused — delete it. Unused permissions are a free rejection

Full policy text, permitted categories, and alternatives: references/restricted-permissions.md.

6. Launch timeline

  • If this is a new personal developer account: a closed test with at least 12 testers continuously opted in for 14 days is required before production access can be requested. [snippet — see references/launch-timeline.md]. Budget three weeks minimum; do not promise same-day publishing
  • Pre-launch report reviewed — it runs automatically on bundles uploaded to closed and open testing and reports crashes, performance, accessibility, and security findings on real Firebase Test Lab devices
  • Managed publishing checked — if it is on, an approved release still will not go live until you release it
  • Demo account credentials supplied to reviewers if the app has a login wall

Confidence and freshness

Research date for this skill: 2026-08-05.

Play Console Help was unreachable during research, so the asset dimensions, file-size caps, screenshot counts, metadata character limits, promo video rules, and the 12-testers/14-days rule could not be verified from a primary source. They are marked [snippet] or [unverified] in references/asset-specs.md and references/launch-timeline.md.

Never present those numbers as authoritative. Tell the user to confirm the current values in Play Console itself — the upload form rejects a wrong-sized asset immediately and is the fastest ground truth — or in Play Console Help. The Publishing API discovery document at https://www.googleapis.com/discovery/v1/apis/androidpublisher/v3/rest is public, needs no auth, and is the authority for anything API-shaped.

Output Format

Report as a results table, then FAIL items, then WARN items, then recommendations. Cite the specific file, manifest line, or Console page for each finding. Skip nothing.

Example output:

Play listing audit — com.example.notes

Date: 2026-08-05 · versionCode 143 · targetSdk 35

# Check Status Notes
1 Build and technical gates FAIL targetSdk = 35; API 36 required for updates from 2026-08-31
2 Store listing content WARN de-DE locale has title.txt but no full_description.txt
3 Promo video PASS Not set; optional
4 App content declarations FAIL Data safety omits the advertising ID
5 Restricted permissions FAIL QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES present, no eligible category
6 Launch timeline WARN Personal account; closed-test requirement likely applies

Critical issues (FAIL — must fix before submission)

1. targetSdk is below the Play floor. app/build.gradle.kts:34.

// Before
targetSdk = 35

// After
targetSdk = 36

Uploads targeting 35 are accepted today but blocked from 2026-08-31 unless a per-app extension to 2026-11-01 is granted.

2. QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES is declared with no eligible use. app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml:11. The app uses it only to check whether a maps app is installed. Play permits this permission for accessibility, browser, device-management, security, and antivirus apps only. Use a <queries> element instead — no declaration form, no review:

<!-- Before -->
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES" />

<!-- After -->
<queries>
    <intent>
        <action android:name="android.intent.action.VIEW" />
        <data android:scheme="geo" />
    </intent>
</queries>

3. Data safety form omits the advertising ID. The build includes play-services-ads:23.x, which reads the advertising ID. Declare Device or other IDs → Advertising ID under both Collected and Shared, add com.google.android.gms.permission.AD_ID to the manifest, and state the purpose. A Data safety answer that contradicts SDK behaviour is one of the most common rejection causes.

Warnings

  • de-DE listing is incomplete. fastlane/metadata/android/de-DE/full_description.txt is missing. Either complete it or remove the locale.
  • Closed-testing requirement may gate production. If this is a personal developer account created after November 2023, expect a 12-tester / 14-day closed test before production access. Unverified — confirm on the Play Console Dashboard, which shows the requirement and progress directly.

Recommendations

  1. Add four 10-inch tablet screenshots. The app is resizeableActivity, so it will be surfaced to large-screen users with phone screenshots otherwise.
  2. Upload mapping.txt with the release so Play crash reports deobfuscate.
  3. Re-run the audit after the fixes and before pressing Send for review.

Verify before shipping: the asset dimensions and character limits used in this audit could not be confirmed against Play Console Help (blocked at research time, 2026-08-05). Confirm them in the Play Console upload form.

End of example.

References

  • references/asset-specs.md — icon, feature graphic, phone/tablet/Wear/TV screenshot dimensions, formats, counts, file-size caps, and metadata character limits. Every row carries a confidence marking.
  • references/app-content.md — Data safety form, IARC content rating, privacy policy, ads declaration, target audience and Families policy, and how to audit third-party SDKs against your answers.
  • references/restricted-permissions.md — which permissions force a declaration form, the permitted categories for each, and the narrower API that avoids the form.
  • references/launch-timeline.md — new-account closed-testing requirement, pre-launch report, review timelines, managed publishing, and staged-launch planning.
  • references/rejection-reasons.md — ranked rejection causes, how to preempt each, and what to do after a rejection.