Kudo Codefest-Android Developer TechTalk: At the early stage of Kudo, the release process were rather chaotic. Overdue releases and bug ridden software were some of the complications that we were experiencing. Over the course of its growth, we learn and steadily refines our engineering policy with heavy emphasize on release process. This slides were presented by Adani and Gerald, mobile developer at Kudo, at Kudo CODEFEST Tech Talk. They explained how Kudo revolutionize their release process, from managing change of scope in an agile startup to maintaining code convention within the team. As a result of our new process, Kudo mobile developers were able to keep up with release date while achieving low crash rate and improving their code quality.

1. Delivering High Quality
Software Through Better
Release Process
Adani Arisy
Mobile Developer Lead
adani@kudo.co.id
Geraldi Kusuma Arnanto
Mobile Developer
geraldi@kudo.co.id

2. Our Experience
• Missing Deadlines
Release date almost always missed. This has cascade effect causing further
miss on next release
• Tight Testing Time
Testing so close to release date (often hours away) leads to low test
coverage
• Rushed Coding
Developer being rushed to finish coding tends to write dirty code which
prone to errors
• Overtimes
To bring out important hotfix or to compensate for missing milestone,
developers do overtime until late
The way it used to be

3. Early Days of Kudo
Zaman Jahiliah
Lots of missed deadlines and overtime L

4. Challenge in Releasing
• Managing Change of Scope
Agile team tends to stuff more requirements into their products, stretching
development time, and delaying release date
• Scaling Team Size
Need a standard process and mechanism that makes it easy for new
members
• Staging While Developing For Next Feature
Can be confusing to manage both at the same time. Context changing is
expensive!
• Maintaining Code Quality and Code Style Standard
Sometimes we forget, sometimes we know how it should be but do not bother

6. Train Release Model
When the train already leaves,
you wait for the next one

7. Staged Release
• Take time to test before
your app hits production
• Bug reports are
welcome, but only fix the
critical one
Alpha: Tested by
developers, products
team, and quality
assurance
Beta: Tested by all kudo
employees
Production: Public
release

8. Branching Strategy
• Use one that provides a
robust model for your release
process
• Gitflow is great because it
• is easy to understand
• isolates development,
staging, & release, and
• can be adjusted for our
release policy

9. Fix Bugs
Before Writing New Code
Fraud comes first, bugs come
second, feature can wait

10. Locking Feature & Code
Only emergency commit
beyond this point
Development phase
Feature freeze
Testing phase
Code Freeze
Alpha release Beta release Production release

11. Emergency Commit
• An urgent fix that must be
resolved before the app hit
the prod
• Release engineering decides
if a bug is considered an
emergency
• Reviewed by release master
before merged

12. Code Review
New features and emergency
commit must pass peer review

13. Before Code
Review

14. The Reason

17. Motivations
It’s much cheaper to fix
problems before the code
even make it to testing

18. Motivations
Both coder and reviewer get
to learn new things

19. Motivations
Maintains coding conventions

20. How We Do It At Kudo
• Adani will assign pairs per
feature
• Everyone gets to review
other’s code

21. How We Do It At Kudo
• Write the code
• Pay attention to code style
guidelines

22. How We Do It At Kudo
• Create Pull Request When
Done Coding
• Set the reviewer

23. How We Do It At Kudo
• Review The Code

24. How We Do It At Kudo
• Fix The Problems
• Pray for the reviewer to merge
it

25. Best Practices
Review fewer than 400 lines of code at a time

26. Best Practices
Take your time. Inspection rates should be under
500 LOC per hour

27. Best Practices
Do NOT review for more than 60 minutes at a time

28. Best Practices
Set goals and capture metrics!

29. Things To Note
We can have a negotiation

30. Things To Note
You are not your code. Don’t take it personally.

31. You need
Commitment**and cooperation from management

32. 100%
Percentage of on-time release

33. 76%
Percentage of user who experience
crashes/day decreases by

34. 99.6% - 99.7%
crash-free sessions daily
compared to 96.1%-98.1%
previously

35. Better Release, Better Life
Happy people do great work!

36. Learn More
• https://smartbear.com/learn/code-review/
• https://www.atlassian.com/agile/code-reviews
• https://blog.codinghorror.com/code-reviews-just-
do-it/
• http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-
model/

37. We Love Good Discussions
Adani – adani@kudo.co.id
Geraldi – geraldi@kudo.co.id
Join Us! Grow Together!
careers@kudo.co.id