App signing keys for bundle

1

Hi all:

I have an existing app that I would upload to the Google Play Store as an APK generated by Volt. Now an AAB bundle is generated Google Play says that “To upload an Android App Bundle you must be enrolled in Play app signing”

I do not want Volt to upload it the bundle for me, I want to do it manually myself. (there is a document on getting Volt to do that, but I could not get it to work and, unlike for Apple, not owning a Mac, I prefer to just unload. so I guess I’ll leave googlePlayKey blank in voltbuilder.json

App signing under App Integrity seems confusing and I do not want to screw up. What would I go about “enrolling in Play app signing”. I do not use Android Studio

I get several options:
Let Google Play manage your app signing key

  • Use existing app signing key from Android Studio
  • Use existing app signing key from Java keystore
  • Use existing app signing key from another repository

Thanks in advance for any help

2

Why did you switch to AAB? I don’t believe Google is requiring it for existing apps.

You generally want Google to manage your signing key, and then you would have VoltBuilder sign with an upload key.

3

A few months ago, with ‘apk’ for ‘androidPackageType’ Volt would still produce an APK, but not anymore.

How do i get Google to manage my signing while keeping the upload manual?

4

Yes, you can still make an apk file. In voltbuilder.json, set androidPackageType to apk.

More information here.

5

Like I said, it does not do that anymore. Setting androidPackageType to ‘apk’ has no effect, an AAB is returned regardless…

6

Did you omit googlePlayKey and make sure GooglePlayTrack is not production ?

7

There is not other choice for a release version.

For debug (even with ‘production’ in GooglePlayTrack), I do get an APK, but not for release.

8

What do you have for GooglePlayTrack? It should be empty.

9

Ok, with an empty GooglePlayTrack it does get me an APK. You guys should document these things, my powers of adivination are limited and this is not how it worked just a few months ago.

I was in a hurry, so I ended up using the AAB version with a PEPK key for Google. Hopefully that prevents APKs of my app showing up in those generic app stores?

10

It’s documented in the link I gave above. If you can think of a place would have been easier to find, let me know. We’re always looking for ways to improve the docs.

11

I had been there several times. In no way it speaks of the combination of settings that will get you an APK, and does not mention that the APK setting will be ignored in some cases. There was no way I could have figured what to do from that info.

The production track to release on. Usually “production”. Valid values include production , internal , alpha , and beta . If set to “production” then androidPackageType is always bundle . Optional.

12

It’s just above that part:

androidPackageType apk or bundle
Optional, defaults to apk . Setting it to bundle makes an Android App Bundle (.aab), which is used for the Android Play Store. To download an aab build, omit googlePlayKey and make sure GooglePlayTrack is not production .

We’ll add something to GooglePlayTrack as well. Documentation is hard!