chore: 2.6.0 rc1 preparation (replacement planned)

[piotr-iohk]

This PR records the original Bitkit 2.6.0 RC1 preparation on release-2.6.0. 3.0.0 RC2 will use a new release-3.0.0 branch and a replacement PR, created from current master after the agreed scope lands.

Replacement plan

• Leave this PR and its branch unchanged while the required RC2 scope lands.
• Create a fresh release-3.0.0 branch from current master in each app repository, then prepare version 3.0.0, a new build number and the consolidated changelog.
• Open a new release PR for each platform and transfer the agreed scope and RC2 validation checklist below.
• Once the replacement PR exists, add a “Superseded by #…” comment linking it and close this old PR without merging. Keep this PR open until then; replacement PR URLs are pending.
• Preserve the existing RC1 GitHub draft release, assets and annotated v2.6.0 tag at their original revision. Create separate release records for 3.0.0 RC2.
• Keep the new release PR open through RC2 testing and merge it into master after the 3.0.0 store release.
• Historical counterpart: iOS #925.

Changelog corrections to carry forward

Before closing this PR, preserve Ovi's release-branch corrections from #1481, commits 0a0a707 and 2ea8a37:

• File the first-use balance-unit/hide-balance guidance (fix: show first-time balance gesture toasts #1272) under Added, not Fixed.
• Link the expired Paykit startup-session entry to fix: flag session restore on pubky init fail #1305, not Paykit: recover stale sessions and harden coroutine error handling #1093.
• Link the wallet-restore/node-restart entry to fix: reconcile node state on start cancel #1291, not fix: recover ldk restart after background timeout #1125 or the intermediate fix: retry node start on restart #1294.
• Link independent contact-linking retries to fix: prioritize explicit contact linking #1451, not Contact payment latency on staging with the shared Paykit runtime: pin paykit-rs#171 and re-measure #1419.

Apply these corrections to the consolidated 3.0.0 changelog after collecting master’s fragments, and verify each survives final generation. A fresh collection alone would not preserve these release-branch edits. Carry forward their content without bringing back the 2.6.0 version/build metadata, duplicating entries, or altering the preserved RC1 tag and artifacts.

Agreed RC2 scope

Per the team scope confirmation:

• Required — USDT and UI follow-ups: Android #1432, iOS #884, Android #1494, iOS #942. Ben's matching gateway deployment/Core acceptance and remaining live checks must be confirmed separately from app merges.
• Required — Shop seller contact import and iOS resume issue: Android #1485, iOS #934, iOS #868.
• Required — translations: Android #1492, iOS #938.
• Include if cleared before the cut — receive invoice races: Android #1483, iOS #933.
• The iOS one-swipe on-chain subscription fix #881 and iPhone grant-signin links #939 are already on master.

Design

N/A — no UI changes in the release preparation commits.

Preview

N/A

QA Notes

Journeys

Validate the final RC2 revisions and production candidates: upgrades from released wallets and RC1, USDT opt-in/send/receive and Paykit payments, first-time Shop seller import and resume, translations, subscriptions, Bitcoin/Lightning, hardware wallets and channel recovery. A pending HTLC force-close claim is not covered by the standard E2E suite.

Automated Checks

RC2 results are pending the new release branch and final preparation commits. Record the exact tested revisions and CI/unit, integration where applicable, local E2E, migration and Android UI results before declaring the candidate ready.

Test compatibility work includes E2E #280 and Android UI fixes #1496; verify their integration and results against the selected RC2 revisions.

Manual Tests

RC2 production builds, artifact verification and release acceptance are pending. Record APK/AAB signing, checksums, matching native debug symbols and production-build QA when available.

Release artifacts

• RC2: 3.0.0; build number, commit, tag and draft release pending the final cut.
• Historical RC1: keep the existing GitHub draft and annotated v2.6.0 tag at 876d0982958e70eb10dd9a607a69f5b2851a3fdc as the original 2.6.0 RC1 (192) record. Preserve its assets and tag target when creating the replacement release branch.
• Prepare a separate 3.0.0 draft/tag for the new cut; RC1 artifacts must not be presented as RC2.
• Store notes and store records need updating for 3.0.0 with USDT and the agreed scope. The RC1 documents linked below remain historical until revised.
• Announce RC2 availability after both platform artifacts and TestFlight are ready.

Historical RC1 preparation and validation (2.6.0; not RC2 evidence)

Prepare Bitkit 2.6.0 RC1 (build 192) from master, with the release changelog collected and a tagged GitHub draft.

Description

• Set version 2.6.0, build 192.
• Finalize the 2026-10-14 changelog, consume next-release fragments, and preserve the 2.5.1 hotfix history from its tag.
• Includes LDK Node 0.7.0-rc.74, Paykit 0.1.0-rc74 and Bitkit Core 0.5.18.
• RC1 excludes USDT (Android feat: add usdt wallet and paykit payments #1432 / iOS fix: align currency and calc widget with ios #884) and the pending iOS one-swipe subscription fix ([Bug]: currency settings and calculator widget inconsistent with iOS #881); later RCs may include them.
• Keep this PR open through release testing; merge into master after the 2.6.0 store release per /release.

Design

N/A — no UI changes.

Preview

N/A

QA Notes

Journeys

The preparation commits change version metadata and changelog files only. Runtime testing of the RC binaries should cover upgrades, payments, Pubky/Paykit, hardware wallets and channel recovery. A pending HTLC force-close claim is not covered by the standard E2E suite.

Manual Tests

Production build passed on tagged RC1 revision 876d09829. All four APKs, AAB, full native debug symbols and SHA256SUMS are attached to the GitHub draft; all seven remote asset digests match local files. Universal APK metadata is to.bitkit, version 2.6.0, build 192, and its production signing certificate matches the previous release. AAB and universal APK copies are available in Downloads. Device QA of this production RC binary remains pending.

Automated Checks

CI/unit, lint, local E2E and migration passed on the app revision before the changelog-only commit. UI tests passed on the matching master base.

The tagged RC1 revision adds only changelog consolidation after validated app revision 501d7c174; release metadata and historical changelog checks passed. No new app-code edits were made during preparation.

Release artifacts

• Tag: v2.6.0 at 876d09829 (RC1); GitHub release stays draft until store release.
• Store release-note draft — five languages; shared read-only with Synonym.
• Slack build announcement stays local until both Android artifacts and iOS TestFlight are available.

[greptile-apps]

Confidence Score: 5/5

[Low impact] The metadata-only change appears safe to merge.

Summary

Prepares Bitkit 2.6.0 by changing only release metadata in app/build.gradle.kts.

• The Android app is now labeled version 2.6.0, build 192.

_{Reviews (3) · Last reviewed commit: "chore: version 2.6.0" · Reviewed by Greptile}

[talosmachina]

No findings. Bumps versionName to 2.6.0 and versionCode to 192 for the 2.6.0 release. Reviewed 143915c, light tier (4 changed lines, version metadata only).

Merge confidence: 4/5, CI build, E2E and E2E Migration were still running at review time; nothing in the diff itself holds it back.

What I checked

Read: the defaultConfig block of app/build.gradle.kts around the hunk; the only other versionCode uses in that file read it from the variant output for APK naming, so nothing else needs to move with it.
Version history: v2.5.0 shipped with 190/2.5.0. versionCode 191 is taken by release-2.5.1 (#1472, 191/2.5.1), so jumping to 192 here keeps the codes monotonic across both releases rather than skipping one by mistake.
CI: lint green; CI build, E2E build-local and E2E Migration build in progress.
Not done: no local Gradle build, on purpose (a Bitkit auto review never builds the PR branch here); this is reasoned from the code and CI.

[github-actions]

Regtest APK

Built from b329b83 (run).

Download bitkit-dev-debug universal APK (expires in 30 days).

[jvsena42]

No findings at 0d42fc9.

Checked: versionName 2.6.0 and versionCode 192 in app/build.gradle.kts. v2.5.0 shipped 190, and release-2.5.1 (#1472) holds 191 / 2.5.1, so 192 keeps the code monotonic across both releases. No other place in the file sets a version. CI is green at this head (build, lint, detekt, e2e, migration).

Device gate: no device check needed (version metadata only). perf: not relevant.

[jvsena42]

Reviewed as a release against v2.5.0 (the tag master descends from) and v2.5.1 (published hotfix, side branch), not only the two prep commits: 826 non-merge commits at 876d098. No HIGH or MEDIUM. Approving with 1 LOW inline; fix it here or move it to a follow-up issue, your call. Please reply on the thread saying which.

Checked and clean:

• Version: versionCode 192 is above every tag (v2.5.0 190, v2.5.1 191). Tag v2.6.0 points at this head.
• Changelog: all 100 fragments are consumed, and changelog.d/next and hotfix hold only .gitkeep. The [2.5.1] section is byte-identical to the one at v2.5.1, and the comparison links are correct. Every merged PR since v2.5.0 without an entry is CI, test, journey, chore or refactor, or is covered by a sibling entry. There is no entry for USDT or allowances, and no usdt in app/src/main.
• Dependencies: ldk-node 0.7.0-rc.74, bitkit-core 0.5.18, paykit 0.1.0-rc74 and vss-client 0.5.23 match iOS synonymdev/bitkit-ios#925. rc.74 pins lightning, lightning-liquidity and lightning-transaction-sync to 0.2.7 (bumped in rc.72), so the 2.5.1 security fix carries forward. ldk-node rc.66..rc.74 touches nothing under src/io or the payment store, and the Room schema is unchanged since v2.5.1 (version 7).
• Newly reachable by default: Paykit UI through the isPaykitEnabled default flip (#1359), as intended. The bitkit://screen/ dev deeplinks stay disabled in the release source set. The only Env.kt change is TAG_MAX_LENGTH; mainnet URLs are unchanged. The new exported SharedPubkyProvider is gated by a signature-level permission and a runtime checkSignatures check.
• CI at 876d098: build, build-release, lint, detekt, all e2e shards, and migration from native 2.5.0 and RN 1.1.6 (upgrade and restore) are green. release-2.5.1 differs from v2.5.0 only in the ldk-node patch, so the 2.5.0 migration baseline stands in for a 2.5.1 field upgrade.

Device gate: no device check needed for the prep commits; the shipped behaviour's runtime evidence is the green e2e and migration runs above, and device QA of the RC binary stays with the release owner. perf: not relevant.

The out-of-scope items (mainnet LDK backup host still blocktank.synonym.to, ldkLogLevel = TRACE in release) are unchanged since v2.5.0 and not raised here.

[jvsena42]

This is the only 2.6.0 entry with no PR number. It comes from the misnamed fragment changelog.d/next/receive-liquidity-cjit.fixed.md added in 06cf08ad3 fix: align receive liquidity (#1248), so the collector had no number to append. Nothing breaks at runtime, but the release notes lose the link back to the change.

Fix: append #1248 to this line.

Check

$ git show 876d098:CHANGELOG.md | awk '/^## \[2.6.0\]/{f=1;next} /^## \[/{f=0} f && /^- / && !/#[0-9]+/'
- Receiving over Lightning now refreshes liquidity requests correctly and avoids showing stale or invalid CJIT quotes.

[ovitrif]

@piotr-iohk, release-notes review of the Android CHANGELOG.md 2.6.0 section at 876d098.

Fixed in #1481, against release-2.6.0:

• #1272 (first-time guidance for balance unit and hiding) moves from Fixed to Added.
• Entries pointing at still-open issues now point at the merged PRs that shipped them:
  • #1093 → #1305
  • #1125 → #1291
  • #1419 → #1451

Still for you:

• Draft release body: it says "RC1 for testing … USDT is not included in RC1"; edit before publishing.
• Spending-confirm fix: #1367 adds no entry by design, since it fixes a regression in the unreleased change #1247 already describes. iOS lists its twin as a separate entry (#783); worth one approach on both sides.
• Android-only entries, worth confirming iOS needs no twin:
  • #1461
  • #1477
  • #1303
  • #1177
  • #1342
  • #1390
  • #1392

[jvsena42]

Re-checked at b329b83 after #1481. The only change since my last review (876d098) is CHANGELOG.md, so the rest of that review stands.

Checked:

• #1272 moves from Fixed to Added. It adds first-time guidance toasts, so Added fits.
• The renumbered entries now link to merged PRs on master: #1305 (session restore flag on pubky init failure), #1291 (node state reconciled on start cancel), #1451 (explicit contact linking priority). The old numbers (#1093, #1125, #1419) are issues, not PRs.
• No other line in the file changed. CI is green at this head.

The LOW on the unnumbered receive-liquidity entry (line 114) is still open. It does not block; add #1248 here or leave it for the release notes, your call.

Device gate: no device check needed (changelog only). perf: not relevant.