@Urbanecm_WMF / @Sgs / @DMburugu - I logged this task to follow up from today's SLA meeting.

Ideally we are addressing this upstream and we don't have unplanned downtime like this again, but if we do, the apps will be in a tough place because they can't easily disable the task.
Is there anything we should do on the Growth side to help with this?
Is remote configuration for the apps a potential future use-case for Community configuration 2.0?

In T347442#9201676, @KStoller-WMF wrote:

@Urbanecm_WMF / @Sgs / @DMburugu - I logged this task to follow up from today's SLA meeting.

Thanks!

Ideally we are addressing this upstream and we don't have unplanned downtime like this again, but if we do, the apps will be in a tough place because they can't easily disable the task.
Is there anything we should do on the Growth side to help with this?

I'm not 100% sure what the issues with task disabling on Android apps are about, but maybe Android app can implement an automated disable based on number of suggestions available? We have Special:NewcomerTasksInfo, which is very slow and a special page only, but we can make it an API (ideally, a faster API as well). That might then be used by Android to automatically disable on low/few suggestions.

Alternatively, we could make an accessible way for apps to check whether Growth has Add Image enabled, which might be used as a status indicator. In that case, Growth would act as "add image" gatekeeper, and I'm not sure whether that's a place we want to be in.

Is remote configuration for the apps a potential future use-case for Community configuration 2.0?

Certainly, although it doesn't fall under the MVP I think, as configuring the apps would be comparable to configuring gadgets. In addition, during the meeting, it was mentioned that apps need a global configuration, since they combine all of Wikipedias in a single app. The technical design of CC2.0 is fairly flexible, but regardless, supporting global configuration would need extra thinking about the designs and such.

In T347442#9206676, @Urbanecm_WMF wrote:
I'm not 100% sure what the issues with task disabling on Android apps are about, but maybe Android app can implement an automated disable based on number of suggestions available? We have Special:NewcomerTasksInfo, which is very slow and a special page only, but we can make it an API (ideally, a faster API as well). That might then be used by Android to automatically disable on low/few suggestions.

Alternatively, we could make an accessible way for apps to check whether Growth has Add Image enabled, which might be used as a status indicator. In that case, Growth would act as "add image" gatekeeper, and I'm not sure whether that's a place we want to be in.

@JTannerWMF Will you chat with app engineers and let us know if you think any work is needed from Growth to support either of the above options (or something else). Thanks!