gplay tracks (+ availability + testers)

Tracks are where releases live; testers are who may install a closed track. gplay folds the two together because they are operationally coupled (DESIGN §10). Shared conventions (auth, --package, output, exit codes) are in gplay-cli-usage; shipping builds onto tracks is gplay-release-flow.

Inspect tracks

bash
gplay tracks list --package com.example.app          # every track on the app
gplay tracks view --track production                 # one track's full state

tracks view answers "is anything wrong on this track right now?" — the latest release, its status, and rollout fraction.

Create a closed track

bash
gplay tracks create qa-team

The create endpoint supports exactly one kind: a CLOSED_TESTING track on the DEFAULT (phone) form factor — so there is no --type / --form-factor flag, and there is no API path to create open/internal tracks (those exist already). Creating a track that already exists surfaces the API error (exit 30); gplay does not fake idempotency. Use --dry-run to preview the TrackConfig; there is no --confirm (a closed test track is low-stakes).

> This is the other half of the release-flow trackhint: an > upload/promote to a custom closed track that doesn't exist yet fails with > exit 30 and tells you to run gplay tracks create <name> first — gplay > never auto-creates a track as a side effect. See gplay-release-flow.

Country availability (read-only)

bash
gplay tracks availability view --track production

Availability — which countries a track's artifacts ship to — is read-only at the Developer API level (ADR-0012): there is no writer. To change where an app is available, use the Play Console. The bare gplay tracks availability prints help; the read is availability view.

Testers (closed-track audience)

bash
gplay testers list --track qa-team
gplay testers set --track qa-team --group qa@googlegroups.com,beta@googlegroups.com
gplay testers set --track qa-team --clear        # close the closed test

testers set is declarative: it replaces the whole audience (it maps 1:1 to testers.update — there is no add/remove). The API exposes only Google Groups, not individual tester emails. A bare set with neither --group nor --clear is refused (exit 2) so a forgotten --group can never silently wipe the list; empty the audience on purpose with --clear. No --confirm; --dry-run previews. Confirm flags with gplay testers set --help.

Typical closed-test setup

bash
gplay tracks create qa-team
gplay testers set --track qa-team --group qa@googlegroups.com
gplay releases upload ./app.aab --track qa-team        # see gplay-release-flow