Upload Android release to the Play Store

This action will help you upload an Android .apk or .aab (Android App Bundle) file to the Google Play Console using the Google Play Developer API v3.

Inputs

Input	Description	Value	Required
releaseFiles	The Android release file(s) to upload (.apk or .aab)	Comma-separated paths. Supports glob via fast-glob	true
serviceAccountJsonPlainText	The service account json in plain text, provided via a secret, etc	The contents of your service-account.json	true (or serviceAccountJson)
packageName	The package name, or Application Id, of the app you are uploading	A valid package name, e.g. com.example.myapp. The packageName must already exist in the play console account, so make sure you upload a manual apk or aab first through the console	true
track	The track in which you want to assign the uploaded app. Defaults to production	See APKs and Tracks documentation for calculating your target track name	true
releaseName	The release name. Not required to be unique. Default is configured by Google Play Console	A user-friendly update name, e.g. v1.0.0	false
inAppUpdatePriority	In-app update priority of the release. All newly added APKs in the release will be considered at this priority. Defaults to 0	[0-5], where 5 is the highest priority	false
userFraction	Percentage of users who should get the staged version of the app.	(0.0-1.0)	false
status	Release status. Defaults to completed.	One of completed, inProgress, halted, draft. Cannot be null.	false
whatsNewDirectory	The directory of localized "whats new" files to upload as the release notes. The files contained in the whatsNewDirectory MUST use the pattern whatsnew-<LOCALE> where LOCALE is using the BCP 47 format	A path to a valid whatsNewDirectory	false
mappingFile	The mapping.txt file used to de-obfuscate your stack traces from crash reports	A path to a valid mapping.txt file	false
debugSymbols	The native-debug-symbols.zip file or folder that contains your debug symbols	A path to a valid native-debug-symbols.zip file file or a folder	false
changesNotSentForReview	Indicates that the changes in this edit will not be reviewed until they are explicitly sent for review from the Google Play Console. Defaults to false	true or false	false
serviceAccountJson	The service account json private key file to authorize the upload request. Can be used instead of serviceAccountJsonPlainText to specify a file rather than provide a secret	A path to a valid service-account.json file	true (or serviceAccountJsonPlainText)
existingEditId	The ID of an existing edit that has not been completed. If this is supplied, the action will append information to that rather than creating an edit	A valid, unpublished Edit ID	false
versionCodesToRetain	Version codes to retain from previous releases.	Comma-separated version codes.	false
releaseFile	Please switch to using releaseFiles as this will be removed in the future		false

Outputs

Output	Environment Variable	Description
internalSharingDownloadUrls	INTERNAL_SHARING_DOWNLOAD_URLS	A JSON list containing the download urls for every release file uploaded using the internalsharing track
internalSharingDownloadUrl	INTERNAL_SHARING_DOWNLOAD_URL	The download url for the last release file uploaded using the internalsharing track
committedEditId	COMMITTED_EDIT_ID	The unique identifier of the committed edit.
committedEditIdExpiryTimeSeconds	COMMITTED_EDIT_ID_EXPIRY_TIME_SECONDS	Time in seconds until the committed edit expires.

Example usage

The below example publishes MyApp to Google Play, targetting 33% (0.33) of users with a priority of 2.

uses: r0adkll/upload-google-play@v1
with:
  serviceAccountJsonPlainText: ${{ SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON }}
  packageName: com.example.MyApp
  releaseFiles: app/build/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab
  track: production
  status: inProgress
  inAppUpdatePriority: 2
  userFraction: 0.33
  whatsNewDirectory: distribution/whatsnew
  mappingFile: app/build/outputs/mapping/release/mapping.txt
  debugSymbols: app/intermediates/merged_native_libs/release/out/lib

Configure access via service account

1. Enable the Google Play Android Developer API.
   1. Go to https://console.cloud.google.com/apis/library/androidpublisher.googleapis.com.
   2. Click on Enable.
2. Create a new service account in Google Cloud Platform (docs).
   1. Navigate to https://cloud.google.com/gcp.
   2. Open IAM & Admin > Service accounts > Create service account.
   3. Pick a name for the new account. Do not grant the account any permissions.
   4. To use it from the GitHub Action use either:
      • Account key in GitHub secrets (simpler):
        1. Open the newly created service account, click on keys tab and add a new key, JSON type.
        2. When successful, a JSON file will be automatically downloaded on your machine.
        3. Store the content of this file to your GitHub secrets, e.g. SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON.
        4. Set serviceAccountJsonPlainText: ${{ SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON }} when using this action.
      • Workload identity authentication (more secure, recommended by GCP):
        1. Configure workload identity provider in the same project as the new service account (docs).
        2. Run a step to obtain short-lived access credentials:

           - id: auth
             uses: google-github-actions/auth@v2
             with:
               workload_identity_provider: <project>/.../workloadIdentityPools/<provider>
               service_account: <service-account>@<project>.iam.gserviceaccount.com
           

        3. Set serviceAccountJson: ${{ steps.auth.outputs.credentials_file_path }} when using this action.
3. Add the service account to Google Play Console.
   1. Open https://play.google.com/console and pick your developer account.
   2. Open Users and permissions.
   3. Click invite new user and add the email of the service account created in the previous step.
   4. Grant permissions to the app that you want the service account to deploy in app permissions.

FAQ

I get the error "Package not found"

Make sure you upload an apk or aab manually first by creating a release through the play console.

The whatsNewDirectory in this example supplies changelogs for English, German and Japanese

distribution/
└─ whatsnew/
  ├─ whatsnew-en-US
  ├─ whatsnew-de-DE
  └─ whatsnew-ja-JP

I get the error "Precondition check failed"

This means some required state or store listing requirement hasn’t been met. Verify your track progression and edit state against the Android Publisher API reference. Common causes include:

First‑time production push

You may have not yet promoted any AAB/APK through internal‑testing, alpha or beta before targeting production.

Before you can target production, push at least one release through an earlier track. For example:

uses: r0adkll/upload-google-play@v1
with:
  # ... other configurations ...
  track: internal

Edit conflict

If you start an edit draft, then make changes to the console (or another draft), committing the original draft will sometimes fail — always create a fresh edit after external changes.

Concurrent edits

Multiple clients may open edits in parallel, but once one is committed all others become stale and may trigger this error.