Frequently Asked Questions

When will Accrescent become stable?

There isn't an ETA for Accrescent's stable release, but there is a public roadmap that represents its current stage of development. If you would like to help Accrescent become stable sooner, check out the high priority open issues on the roadmap.

How do apps get into Accrescent?

Developers submit their built and signed apps to Accrescent directly through the Accrescent Developer Console. Accrescent doesn't build, sign, or update developers' apps itself. For more detailed information, see the developer documentation.

What kind of checks will Accrescent do on submitted apps?

Accrescent has strict quality control measures to ensure the security and privacy of all submitted apps. For specific details on what these measures are, see the requirements section of the developer documentation.

Does Accrescent support third-party repositories?

Accrescent intentionally does not support third-party repositories and has no plans to support them. There are a few technical reasons for this. For one, supporting third-party repositories breaks the Android security model. Android assumes one app (e.g. Accrescent) is a single app source. When this assumption is broken, bad things can happen. For example, say Accrescent supported third-party repos and is integrated into an Android-based OS as a first-party app source. If a given user or work profile is restricted from installing apps from third-party sources by an MDM or OS settings, they could trivially bypass said restrictions by adding a third-party repository.

Another reason Accrescent doesn't support third-party repos is lack of available security features. The chain of trust between Accrescent and the signed repository metadata would be weakened since Accrescent can't reasonably maintain a list of hardcoded keys for all third-party repos. TLS certificate pinning is also impractical to implement for third-party servers.

Do apps in Accrescent need to be open-source?

Apps do not need to be open-source to be submitted to Accrescent. Although open-source software provides additional transparency and can make it easier for users to check overall code quality, it is not inherently more secure or private than closed-source software. Likewise, proprietary software is not inherently less secure or private than open-source software. Since Accrescent is focused on security and privacy it wouldn't make sense for it to restrict developers to a specific source model.

However, Accrescent recognizes the benefits of open-source and so is open-source itself. In the future, apps in the store will additionally be able to be tagged as open-source and filtered for in the client.

How can I verify my download of Accrescent is legitimate?

If using GrapheneOS, the recommended method to verify Accrescent is to install it from the GrapheneOS App Store. This approach chains the verification of Accrescent to the OS, which can in turn be chained to a hardware root of trust through verified boot and GrapheneOS' Auditor app.

For other Accrescent users, Accrescent's signing certificate hash can be verified by using apksigner with the --print-certs option. Certificate hashes are published here, on GitHub, and on Twitter.

You should check the certificate hash from a different source than you got the app from. For example, if you download Accrescent from GitHub, you should verify the certificate hash from Twitter or this website to distrust the server.

Signing certificate hash: 067a40c4193aad51ac87f9ddfdebb15e24a1850babfa4821c28c5c25c3fdc071.

How can I contribute to Accrescent?

There are many ways to contribute to Accrescent even if you can't code. Below is a list of all of the ways you can help the project.

Programming

The most obvious way to help Accrescent is to contribute code. All repositories can be found under the GitHub organization. If you're not sure what to work on, the public roadmap contains all project issues sorted into different categories and labeled by priority. Feel free to ask questions about development in our Matrix room as well.

Bug reports / feature suggestions

Another way to help is by testing and reporting bugs in the app and other Accrescent subprojects. Bug reports are accepted in the respective repository issue trackers and the meta issue tracker if you're not sure where to report the bug. You can also report issues in the Matrix room although they're more likely to get lost in the chat there. Feature suggestions can be made in the same places.

Translation

Translations are accepted for the Accrescent app on Hosted Weblate or through pull requests. Currently the website is English only, but there are plans to accept translations for it in the future.

Documentation

Documentation improvements are welcome. All documentation is hosted on this website, and you can submit changes to our GitHub repo

Donations

Accrescent is funded purely by donations. Funding goes directly toward covering costs for servers, development hardware, development work, and legal fees. If you'd like to contribute to Accrescent financially, please visit our donation page.