Set up Sentry release size analysis

[roryabraham]

Problem

When we deploy App, if new packages are added or updated, then we can introduce start time regressions due to unexpected changes in bundle size.

Solution

Set up Sentry's size analysis feature with our deploy pipelines (for iOS/Android, staging/production/AdHoc).

Important Note: Access to Sentry is a prerequisite for this issue. Please do not post a proposal if you do not already have access to Expensify's Sentry dashboards.

Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @abzokhattab

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @abzokhattab (External)

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @sonialiap (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[melvin-bot]

Unable to auto-create job on Upwork. The BZ team member should create it manually for this issue.

[roryabraham]

Going to forego C+ services for this issue

[MelvinBot]

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

When the App is deployed, new or updated packages can silently introduce start time regressions due to unexpected changes in bundle/binary size. There is currently no automated tracking of app binary size across releases, so these regressions go unnoticed until they impact users.

What is the root cause of that problem?

The deploy pipelines (deploy.yml for staging/production, buildAdHoc.yml for AdHoc builds) produce iOS and Android build artifacts (IPA/AAB) but never upload them to Sentry for size analysis. Despite having a mature Sentry integration for crash reporting and tracing (@sentry/react-native v7.6.0, org=expensify, project=app), the sentry-cli build upload command is not invoked anywhere in CI.

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Add sentry-cli build upload steps to the deploy workflows after build artifacts are produced. Specifically:

1. Staging/Production deploys (deploy.yml):

• Android (after the fastlane android build_hybrid step at ~line 168): Upload the AAB artifact using npx @sentry/cli build upload <aab-path> --org expensify --project app --build-configuration Release
• iOS (after the fastlane ios build_hybrid step at ~line 385): Upload the IPA artifact using npx @sentry/cli build upload <ipa-path> --org expensify --project app --build-configuration Release
• Both steps should be conditional on SHOULD_BUILD_APP (same as the build steps), since production deploys promote existing builds rather than creating new ones

2. AdHoc builds (buildAdHoc.yml):

• Android (after the Rock remote build step at ~line 206): Upload the produced APK/AAB artifact
• iOS (after the Rock remote build step at ~line 336): Upload the produced IPA artifact
• Use --build-configuration AdHoc to distinguish from release builds in Sentry's UI

3. Ensure sentry-cli >= 2.58.2 is available in CI. It's already bundled with @sentry/react-native and accessible via npx @sentry/cli, but the version should be verified. If it's too old, add an explicit npm install @sentry/cli@latest step or use curl to install the standalone binary.

4. Auth token scoping: Verify that the existing SENTRY_AUTH_TOKEN GitHub secret has the project:releases scope required for size analysis uploads. If not, it needs to be updated in Sentry's auth token settings.

All upload steps should use continue-on-error: true (similar to SENTRY_ALLOW_FAILURE already in .env.example) so that a Sentry upload failure doesn't block deployments.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

• Standalone bundle size tracking via react-native-bundle-visualizer or custom scripts: Would require maintaining a separate tracking infrastructure. Sentry's built-in solution is preferable since it integrates with the existing Sentry dashboard and correlates size data with release metadata.
• Using only the existing webpack-bundle-analyzer (web-only, npm run analyze-packages): This only covers web builds and is manual/ad-hoc — it doesn't run in CI and doesn't cover React Native binaries.
• Uploading XCArchive instead of IPA for iOS: Sentry docs recommend XCArchive for more detailed breakdown, but the current Fastlane build_app step with export_method: "app-store" produces an IPA. Producing an XCArchive would require modifying the Fastlane lane to also preserve the intermediate archive. IPA is supported and sufficient for size tracking; XCArchive optimization could be a follow-up.

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Next Steps for Contributor+ team: Reply with @MelvinBot implement this to create a draft PR, or @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis.