A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How We Release the Spotify App (Part 1)
Article Summary
Spotify ships weekly releases to 675 million users across iOS and Android. Here's how they balance speed with quality at that scale.
The Spotify Release team pulls back the curtain on their mobile release process. They manage hundreds of changes per week while maintaining strict quality standards through a dedicated Release Manager and custom tooling.
Key Takeaways
- Weekly release cycle: from Friday branch creation to 100% rollout in 10 days
- Trunk-based development with feature flags for major changes like Audiobooks
- Release Manager Dashboard tracks crashes, ANRs, blocking bugs, and test status
- Two-phase rollout: 1% initial deployment, then 100% after validation
- 95% of releases reach all users without cancellation
Critical Insight
Spotify's structured 10-day release cycle and custom dashboard enable weekly app updates to hundreds of millions of users while maintaining quality gates.
