Etsy’s Mobile Continuous Integration Practices to Improve Release Quality

Etsy’s engineering team embraces a “continuous delivery” mindset, deploying over 50 times daily on the web, but faces higher costs on mobile due to review cycles and user upgrade inertia.

All git pushes must be on the main branch and compiled on an integration server. This first CI principle catches compilation failures early, which IDE builds alone cannot guarantee.

Automation of environment preparation for app integration. About 95% of the required installations for Xcode, Git, and Android packages are scripted; the remaining steps are manual.

Build on every commit and provide daily “dog‑food” builds. Developers receive build results via IRC or email, enabling rapid fixes, and any employee can install the daily build on their device, encouraging internal testing.

Run automated tests on each commit. Functional tests focus on APIs already verified on the web, catching bugs and mobile‑specific crashes across multiple device combinations.

Execute tests on physical devices. Using AppThwack’s device cloud, each commit triggers tests on a dedicated device set, with nightly regression runs on a broader fleet.

Maintain a dashboard. Fifteen Jenkins jobs build and test the app, delivering key information to developers without noise; a custom dashboard visualizes configuration and test status.

Static code analysis and code reviews. Automated tests cannot catch all bugs, so mandatory code reviews and static analysis are enforced before merging to the main branch.