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Submission Guide

For Startup Developers

You don't need to fork this repo or learn F-Droid internals.

Step 1: Publish a Release on Your Own Repo

Build a signed release APK and publish it as a GitHub/GitLab/Codeberg release:

# Build signed APK
flutter build apk --release

# Tag and release
git tag -a v1.0.0 -m "Release 1.0.0"
git push origin v1.0.0

# Create GitHub Release with APK attached
gh release create v1.0.0 \
  build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk \
  --title "v1.0.0" \
  --notes "First release"

Step 2: Open an Issue

Go to New Issue > App Submission and fill out:

  • Your repo URL (where the release APK lives)
  • Package name
  • Which DojoCodingLabs program you participated in
  • Brief app description

Step 3: Wait for Approval

A DojoCodingLabs maintainer will:

  1. Verify your connection to a DojoCodingLabs program
  2. Add your app's metadata to the marketplace
  3. Reply to your issue confirming the app is live

Updating Your App

Just publish a new release on your own repo with a new git tag. Our pipeline checks for new versions automatically and updates the marketplace.

That's It

You never need to touch this repo. We fetch your APK from your releases.

For Maintainers

This section is for DojoCodingLabs team members who manage the marketplace.

Adding a New App

When a startup opens a submission issue:

  1. Verify they participated in a DojoCodingLabs program (hackathon, Launchpad, accelerator)

  2. Check their repo has a valid signed APK in releases:

    # Download and verify
gh release download v1.0.0 -R startup/app -p "*.apk"
apksigner verify --print-certs app-release.apk
aapt2 dump badging app-release.apk | head -3

  3. Create metadata file:

    cat > metadata/com.startup.appname.yml << 'EOF'
Categories:
  - Utilities
License: MIT
AuthorName: Startup Name
AuthorEmail: dev@startup.com
SourceCode: https://github.com/startup/app
IssueTracker: https://github.com/startup/app/issues

AutoName: App Display Name
Description: |
  Description from the submission issue.

RepoType: git
Repo: https://github.com/startup/app.git

UpdateCheckMode: Tags
AutoUpdateMode: Version

X-DojoLaunchpad: true
X-DojoHackathon: "Hackathon 2026-Q1"

CurrentVersion: 1.0.0
CurrentVersionCode: 1
EOF

  4. Commit and push to main:

    git add metadata/com.startup.appname.yml
git commit -m "feat: add com.startup.appname to marketplace"
git push

  5. Pipeline runs automatically — fetches APK, scans, rebuilds index, deploys

  6. Reply to the issue confirming the app is live, with the repo URL for users

Removing an App

Delete the metadata file and push. The pipeline will regenerate the index without it.

git rm metadata/com.startup.appname.yml
git commit -m "remove: com.startup.appname"
git push

Handling Updates

If UpdateCheckMode: Tags is set, fdroidserver detects new tags automatically during the scheduled pipeline run. No manual action needed.

If auto-update fails (e.g., developer changed signing key, tag format changed), manually update CurrentVersion and CurrentVersionCode in the metadata file.

Metadata Reference

See F-Droid Build Metadata Reference for all available fields.

Key fields for our use case:

Field Purpose Required
Categories F-Droid category Yes
License SPDX identifier Yes
AuthorName Developer/startup name Yes
AutoName Display name Yes
Description App description Yes
SourceCode Repo URL Yes
RepoType + Repo Where to fetch releases Yes
UpdateCheckMode How to detect new versions Yes
CurrentVersion + CurrentVersionCode Latest known version Yes
X-DojoLaunchpad DojoCodingLabs flag Custom
X-DojoHackathon Which program Custom