gplay appstore (alternative app store operations)

gplay appstore acts for the operator of a third-party Android app store: the catalog that store mirrors from Play, and the apps it hosts and must send to Google for review. Publishing your own app to Google Play is gplay-release-flow.

Shared conventions are in gplay-cli-usage. Read the current flags from gplay appstore <command> --help: it is long and complete, and this skill carries the order the commands go in and the traps between them.

Caller and subject: two packages, one command

| Flag | Role | Falls back to | |---|---|---| | --store-package | the caller, your app store's own package | $GPLAY_APP_STORE_PACKAGE (ADR-0043) | | --package | the subject, the hosted app acted on | the repo's .gplay/config.json pin |

Swapping the two is the standard failure here. The catalog reads take the caller only, and address the Play app as a positional argument: they ignore the repo pin, so a resolved .gplay/config.json still leaves --store-package required.

Mirror Play's catalog

bash
gplay appstore catalog view com.example.app --store-package com.mystore.app

gplay appstore catalog events list \
  --start-time 2026-07-01T00:00:00Z --end-time 2026-07-08T00:00:00Z

catalog events list is the incremental sync feed, and the reason to script this surface at all: each event is a MODIFICATION (re-fetch that app with catalog view) or a DELETION (delist it). Persist each run's --end-time and feed it back as the next run's --start-time.

Take a hosted app through review

The four writes are an ordered path: Google refuses everything else for an app until its record exists.

bash
# 1. Once per hosted app: the record.
gplay appstore create --package com.example.app --store-package com.mystore.app

# 2. Upload each artifact; the printed id is the point of the call.
gplay appstore upload apk    ./base.apk    --package com.example.app   # → apkId
gplay appstore upload image  ./icon.png    --package com.example.app   # → imageId
gplay appstore upload policy ./privacy.pdf --package com.example.app   # → fileId

# 3. Assemble those ids into one JSON body and submit to review.
gplay appstore update --file ./hosted-app.json --dry-run     # rehearse, zero HTTP
gplay appstore update --file ./hosted-app.json --confirm     # irrevocable

# 4. Later, to withdraw the app from the store, or put it back:
gplay appstore publish-status unpublished --package com.example.app
gplay appstore publish-status published   --package com.example.app

Two traps span the path: upload ids cannot be listed back, so store them the moment they print; create has no delete and a second run is exit 60, so a script that runs twice guards it.

The update body is one JSON file whose shape gplay appstore update --help prints. Keep it in version control: the API answers with no fields and offers no read-back, so the file is the only record of what was submitted and the base for the next one.