Optimizing Testing for Server-Driven Mobile Development at Strava

Strava's Android team hit a wall: testing server-driven UI meant wrestling with Charles Proxy crashes, EOF errors, and 3-4 minute build times. An intern decided to fix it.

Xin Yi Chen, a UC Berkeley intern on Strava's Multisport team, built an internal testing tool to streamline development of their server-driven mobile architecture. The article walks through the problem, refactoring challenges, and solution that cut testing friction significantly.

Key Takeaways

• Server-driven UI uses reusable view modules (atoms) across different screens (molecules)
• Charles Proxy debugging was unreliable with connection failures and emulator incompatibility
• New mini app reduced build times from 3-4 minutes to 1-1.5 minutes
• Refactored module registration to support new Android module dependencies
• Shared JSON test files with iOS team via git submodule

The solution borrowed a page from iOS's playbook, but the real win came from rethinking how Android modules register their components.