Add staging OTA publish pipeline

[aapeliv]

Adds the staging publish pipeline for the self-hosted mobile OTA, mirroring the web build→deploy shape. On merge to develop, CI bundles the staging variant, stages the (unsigned) Expo Updates output, uploads the bundle + assets to dev-assets, and prints the native_ota_bundles JSON to paste into the staging GrowthBook flag. The staging backend (dev-api.couchershq.org/native/ota/manifest) builds the served manifest from that flag, with asset URLs pointing at the uploaded files.

Also fixes the staging app's update URL, which still pointed at the old /mobile/ota/manifest path after the endpoint was renamed to /native/ota/manifest.

Targets the mobile/feature/prod-ota feature branch (not develop).

Changes

• app/.gitlab-ci.yml — new develop-only build:mobile-ota-staging + deploy:mobile-ota-staging jobs.
• app/mobile/scripts/ota-growthbook-flag.mjs — emits the native_ota_bundles flag JSON from staged manifests.
• app/mobile/app.config.js — staging updates.url → /native/ota/manifest.

Notes / follow-ups

• Unsigned for now (code signing deferred).
• CDN routing: asset URLs are baked at https://<sha>--ota-staging.preview.couchershq.org, expecting the host→prefix lambda to map that to /ota-staging/<sha>/ — the lambda needs updating to handle that prefix.
• GrowthBook update is manual (printed JSON pasted into the flag) for now.
• Production publishing will go through the tools/ ops deploy, down the line.

Testing

• Validated app/.gitlab-ci.yml parses (js-yaml).
• Ran ota-growthbook-flag.mjs against sample manifests; output matches the shape the backend servicer reads (id, launch_asset.{key,url}, assets).
• Not yet exercised end-to-end in CI or on-device. When testing on-device, confirm the published bundle's fingerprint (printed in the deploy log / runtime_version in the flag JSON) matches the installed staging build.

For maintainers

• Maintainers can push commits to my branch
• Maintainers can merge this PR for me

This PR was created with the Couchers PR skill.

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Project	Deployment	Actions	Updated (UTC)
couchers	Ready	Preview	May 24, 2026 10:20pm

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Preview builds

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Deep link

couchers-devtool://expo-development-client/?url=https%3A%2F%2F9e3758d4--ota.preview.couchershq.org%2Fios%2Fmanifest

android — Open in Dev Tool

Deep link

couchers-devtool://expo-development-client/?url=https%3A%2F%2F9e3758d4--ota.preview.couchershq.org%2Fandroid%2Fmanifest

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[github-actions]

📝 Release Notes

This PR does not need to be included in release notes.

Reason: This PR adds internal CI/CD and staging OTA publishing infrastructure for the mobile app, plus a staging-only update URL fix. It is primarily developer/operations work and does not introduce a user-facing feature or a clearly noticeable improvement for end users in production.

🤖 Bot Debug Information

Model: couchers.openai.gpt-5.4
Decision: exclude
Reasoning: This PR adds internal CI/CD and staging OTA publishing infrastructure for the mobile app, plus a staging-only update URL fix. It is primarily developer/operations work and does not introduce a user-facing feature or a clearly noticeable improvement for end users in production.