CircleCI Android images support policy
Overview
This document outlines the CircleCI Android image release, update, and deprecation policy. This policy applies to all CircleCI Android images built for the machine executor.
Release policy
Android images are released once a quarter, with patch releases potentially being made for security issues. These images are generally built on top of the latest version of our most recent stable base Ubuntu image with added packages for Android.
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We install the most up-to-date versions of each tool/package in newly built images.
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We aim to package 6 levels of the Android API within each image release.
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As this image is not specifically designed for the Android Gradle Plugin (AGP), some updates may come later than desired. However, we aim to follow compatibility matrices for AGP and Gradle.
Releases may be skipped if there are no material updates to core Android functionality, such as sdkmanager, ndk or platform versions.
Tagging
Tags we support for this image (tag is what is specified in config when requesting an image):
For the latest major version of Docker:
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default: This image is the current stable version of the image and will receive updates approximately every 3 months. -
edge: These tags are reserved for previews of new releases, which will initially point to this tag. Theedgetags may include incremental updates to thecurrentimage release, which may change without notice, and is not recommended to be used for production CI workloads.currentwill be updated with these changes after a period of stability (generally an average of a week). -
Date based tagging: Android images are generally released once every 3 months. The date-based tagging conventions take the format of
<year>.<month>.<patch>, such as2023.10.1. We recommend using thedefaultversion and not pinning to a date version.
Critical CVE patches
When critical CVEs are disclosed that affect the versions of the operating system or software stack in our Docker convenience images, we will investigate the impact that this has on our images being used within the CircleCI execution environment. If customers are impacted by these CVEs we will push a patch fix to the released image(s), and this image will supersede the original image.
Bug reports, issues, and PRs
File a Support Ticket with CircleCI Support for any issues or bugs found with the Android VM (machine) images. Our Support Team will be able to escalate issues internally to the correct engineering team and provide updates on the issue.
Image lifespan / EOL
We will keep a total of seven images at maximum, with a deprecation cycle happening once per year. The table below shows which images will be kept in each cycle. Generally we will aim to start EOL process within 3 months of a new version release.
Current Deprecation (Jan 2024):
| Release cycle | Image status |
|---|---|
Current year | Keep all quarterly images of this year. Keep Q4 (October) image release of the last 2 years |
When an image is selected for deprecation and removal, we will create an announcement on our Discuss forum, along with reaching out via email to developers who have requested one of the deprecated images in their recent jobs.
We will also plan brownouts to ensure users are aware of the approaching removal of deprecated images. Generally, we will aim to start an EOL process within 3 months of a new version release.
Exceptions
At any time, we reserve the right to work outside of the information in this document if the circumstances require. In the event that we are required to make an exception to the policy, we will aim to provide as much notice and clarity as possible. In these cases, an announcement will be posted on our Discuss Forum, along with additional outreach, such as an email notice, where possible.