flutter-release-engineering

Flutter Release Engineering

Overview

The Flutter Release Engineering skill provides the complete deployment, packaging, and configuration lifecycle for Flutter applications across mobile (Android/iOS), web, and desktop. Operating across Claude Code and Google Antigravity, this skill guides teams through environment configuration injection (--dart-define-from-file), flavor schemes, secure app signing without in-repo credentials, reproducible CI build matrices, semver versioning, and over-the-air (OTA) patching via Shorebird.

When to Use

Trigger Scenarios

• Configuring environment flavors (dev, staging, production) and injecting configuration files.
• Setting up automated CI/CD build matrices for App Store (IPA), Google Play (AAB), Web, and Desktop.
• Establishing secure key signing pipelines for Android Keystores and Apple Provisioning Profiles.
• Evaluating and deploying over-the-air code patching (Shorebird) while managing store compliance.

When NOT to Use

• Day-to-day feature implementation: Use flutter-implementer and official flutter-* skills for widget and domain coding.
• Pure backend container builds: For Docker or Cloud Run builds, use build-and-ci-gates.
• Local code formatting: Use dart format and dart analyze.

Process

flowchart TD
    A[Release Candidate Ready] --> B[Step 1: Environment Config Injection]
    B --> C[Step 2: Credential & Signing Validation]
    C --> D[Step 3: Multi-Platform Release Build Matrix]
    D --> E[Step 4: Obfuscation & Symbol Archival]
    E --> F[Step 5: Automated Store Packaging & Metadata]

1. Environment Configuration

• Inject non-secret configuration variables using build-time definition files: flutter build <target> --dart-define-from-file=config/prod.json
• Access values in Dart via a typed AppConfig wrapping String.fromEnvironment and bool.fromEnvironment.
• Manage native variations (package IDs, bundle names, icons, Firebase configs) using Android product flavors and iOS schemes/xcconfig.
• Never commit production secrets, service keys, or keystores into source control. Store secrets strictly in CI encrypted stores.