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v3.1.0 -- Google Play Launch and Stability

Release Date: May 2026

This release focused on shipping TrickBook to Google Play, fixing critical authentication and UI bugs, and hardening Kaori's reliability.

Highlights​

Google Play Store Submission​

TrickBook is now submitted to Google Play (Closed Alpha, internal track). The full EAS Build + EAS Submit pipeline is operational:

  • AAB format with auto-incrementing versionCode (currently v15)
  • Service account authentication for automated submission
  • Managed publishing enabled for controlled rollouts

See Google Play Deployment for the full pipeline documentation.

Native Google Sign-In (Android)​

Migrated from expo-auth-session (browser-based OAuth) to @react-native-google-signin/google-signin (native SDK).

Why: The browser-based flow used custom scheme redirect URIs (trickbook://) which Google's web OAuth clients reject with Error 400. This broke Google Sign-In for all Play Store users.

What changed:

  • Native one-tap Google Sign-In on Android (no browser popup)
  • Two Android OAuth clients registered in GCP: one for upload key (dev), one for app signing key (production)
  • Config plugin added to app.config.js with iosUrlScheme
  • Backend verification unchanged (webClientId used as ID token audience)

See ADR-001: Native Google Sign-In for the full decision record.

Kaori AI Reliability​

Fixed two issues that made Kaori unusable:

  1. ElizaOS service was stopped -- the kaori-bot PM2 process had crashed and not recovered (34 restarts, status: stopped). Restarted and now monitored.

  2. Bot-chat had no fallback -- when ElizaOS was down, the bot-chat endpoint immediately returned a "technical difficulties" error. Added the same three-tier fallback chain that the DM route already had:

ElizaOS (30s timeout) --> OpenRouter/Gemini 2.0 Flash (25s timeout) --> Static error

See ADR-002: Kaori Fallback Chain.

  1. User messages disappeared in chat -- the botChat.js route saved user messages to MongoDB without the message field. Text was sent to the AI but never persisted. Fixed by adding message: message to the database insert.

Map Pin Rendering (Android)​

Fixed map markers on the Spots screen showing as yellow triangles instead of proper pin icons on Android.

Root cause: Android's react-native-maps renders custom Marker children as bitmap snapshots. The Pressable wrapper and CSS shadow/elevation styles caused Android to fail at capturing the circular marker icon -- only the border-based triangle pointer rendered.

Fix:

  • Removed Pressable wrapper inside Marker (the Marker.onPress already handles taps)
  • Removed shadowColor, shadowOffset, shadowOpacity, shadowRadius, and elevation from marker styles (these don't work in bitmap-snapshot mode)

Technical Changes​

Mobile App (TrickList)​

FileChange
app.config.jsAdded @react-native-google-signin/google-signin config plugin
app/(auth)/welcome.tsxReplaced expo-auth-session with native GoogleSignin.signIn()
app/(tabs)/spots/index.tsxRemoved Pressable wrapper and shadow styles from map markers
package.jsonAdded @react-native-google-signin/google-signin dependency
eas.jsonAdded serviceAccountKeyPath to playstore submit profile

Backend​

FileChange
routes/botChat.jsAdded message field to user message saves; added OpenRouter fallback chain
.env.exampleAdded GOOGLE_IOS_CLIENT_ID, GOOGLE_ANDROID_CLIENT_ID

Infrastructure​

ComponentChange
Google Cloud ConsoleAdded second Android OAuth client (app signing key SHA-1)
PM2 (kaori-bot)Restarted stopped ElizaOS service
PM2 (TB-Backend)Deployed botChat.js fix with fallback chain

Known Issues​

  • Previous Kaori bot-chat messages saved without user text will still appear as empty yellow bubbles (historical data, not fixable retroactively)
  • Store listing (description, screenshots, feature graphic) still needed before production release
  • Content rating questionnaire and data safety form still pending in Play Console

Documentation Updates​