[stealth 2/4] neutral identity, icons & manifest minimization

[reflog]

Part of epic getlantern/engineering#3569 — stacked PR 2/4, targets stealth/pr1-foundation.

Per-build neutral Android identity (randomized package name, labels, VPN session name), generated neutral app/notification icons, and Android manifest + permission minimization (incl. the no-VPN manifest). Normal builds unchanged.

Implements getlantern/engineering#3624.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

Summary by CodeRabbit

• New Features

  • Added support for creating stealth Android build variants with customizable branding, icons, and app identity
  • Introduced build-time configuration for app labels, package names, and notification settings per variant

• Documentation

  • Added guides for stealth Android icon generation and identity profile configuration

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR is the second in the Stealth Android stack and introduces build-time–gated mechanisms to neutralize install-time identity (package/app labels/auth scheme), generate neutral icon resources, and minimize the merged Android manifest for stealth modes while keeping normal builds on the existing identity defaults.

Changes:

• Add generators (with tests) for Android identity profiles (.properties) and deterministic neutral icon resources driven by private seeds.
• Introduce a post-merge Android manifest filter (with tests) to remove unwanted permissions/components and rewrite component names for stealth vpn/novpn modes.
• Wire Android runtime strings/icons/labels to build-provided values (via placeholders/BuildConfig), and add stealth-only Kotlin + resource overlays for a neutral bridge surface.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 27 out of 27 changed files in this pull request and generated 9 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.novpn.xml	Adds a separate manifest variant intended for a no-VPN mode configuration.
android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml	Switches app identity and icon fields to manifest placeholders (label/icons/auth scheme/tile icon).
android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/LanternApp.kt	Makes the Application class extensible for generated/debranded variants.
android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/notification/NotificationManager.kt	Uses BuildConfig-driven notification channel strings and resolves configurable small-icon resources.
android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/service/LanternVpnService.kt	Makes VPN service extensible and moves session naming/exclusion behavior to BuildConfig + stealth helpers.
android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/service/QuickTileService.kt	Makes tile service extensible and uses BuildConfig-driven tile labels + configurable service intent target.
android/app/src/main/res/drawable/neutral_app_icon.xml	Adds neutral drawable icon resource for identity/profile-based placeholder usage.
android/app/src/main/res/drawable/neutral_notification_icon.xml	Adds neutral notification icon drawable resource.
android/app/src/main/res/values/string.xml	Removes the checked-in app_name string to rely on build-injected values.
android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/AppHost.kt	Adds stealth Application host that initializes bridge context.
android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/BaseHomeActivity.kt	Adds a stealth FlutterActivity base with a bridge control MethodChannel.
android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/BridgeCommon.kt	Adds shared stealth bridge utilities (state/paths/foreground notification).
android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/launch_background.xml	Adds stealth launch background resource.
android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/neutral_app_icon.xml	Adds stealth overlay neutral app icon resource.
android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/neutral_notification_icon.xml	Adds stealth overlay neutral notification icon resource.
android/app/src/stealth/res/values-night/styles.xml	Adds stealth night theme resources.
android/app/src/stealth/res/values/styles.xml	Adds stealth default theme resources.
docs/stealth-android-icons.md	Documents stealth icon generation and build wiring.
docs/stealth-android-identity.md	Documents identity profile generation/usage and schema.
lib/core/common/app_secrets.dart	Routes Android package name usage through build-info (stealth-aware) rather than a hard-coded constant.
scripts/stealth/android_manifest_filter.py	Implements post-merge manifest minimization + component rewrite for stealth vpn/novpn.
scripts/stealth/android_manifest_filter_test.py	Adds coverage for manifest filtering invariants and idempotency.
scripts/stealth/debrand_kotlin.py	Implements mechanical debranding copy/transform of Kotlin sources/resources for stealth builds.
scripts/stealth/generate_android_icons.py	Generates deterministic neutral icon resource set and metadata from a seed.
scripts/stealth/generate_android_icons_test.py	Adds deterministic and file-output tests for icon generation.
scripts/stealth/generate_android_identity.py	Generates Android identity profiles (properties) from seed or JSON profile input.
scripts/stealth/generate_android_identity_test.py	Adds tests for deterministic identity generation, profile import, and properties output.

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[coderabbitai]

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4 | ❌ 1

❌ Failed checks (1 warning)

Check name	Status	Explanation	Resolution
Docstring Coverage	⚠️ Warning	Docstring coverage is 3.36% which is insufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.	Write docstrings for the functions missing them to satisfy the coverage threshold.

✅ Passed checks (4 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately and concisely describes the main changes: implementing neutral (randomized) identity, generating icons, and minimizing the Android manifest for stealth builds.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Description Check	✅ Passed	Check skipped - CodeRabbit’s high-level summary is enabled.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch stealth/pr2-identity

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 6

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml`:
- Around line 69-81: The AndroidManifest.xml intent-filters now advertise the
dynamic ${appAuthScheme} for deep-link handling, but the deep-link routing logic
in lib/lantern_app.dart still hardcodes checks for uri.scheme == 'lantern'.
Update the scheme validation logic in lib/lantern_app.dart where the auth,
report-issue, and private-server hosts are handled to check against the actual
appAuthScheme value that matches what the manifest declares, rather than the
hardcoded 'lantern' string, so that incoming URIs like mobileapp://auth?... are
properly recognized and routed.

In
`@android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/notification/NotificationManager.kt`:
- Around line 237-251: The resolveNotificationSmallIcon function currently falls
back to R.drawable.lantern_notification_icon unconditionally when icon
resolution fails, which leaks the branded identity in stealth builds. Instead of
always returning the branded icon, check whether the application is running in
stealth mode using a stealth-aware check through LanternApp.application, then
return an appropriate stealth-aware fallback icon resource when in stealth mode,
or the branded icon otherwise.

In `@android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/BridgeCommon.kt`:
- Line 93: The `.setContentTitle()` call in BridgeCommon.kt is referencing
R.string.app_name which does not exist in the stealth resource tree. Either add
an app_name string resource definition to the stealth flavor's string.xml file,
or replace the R.string.app_name reference with a string resource that actually
exists in the stealth resources (such as the existing disconnect string), or use
a hardcoded string literal instead of a resource reference.

In `@docs/stealth-android-identity.md`:
- Around line 82-87: The documentation in lines 82-87 and 117-119 does not
adequately clarify the difference in APP_AUTH_SCHEME handling between stealth
and non-stealth Android builds. Revise the text to explicitly state that for
stealth builds, ANDROID_IDENTITY_DART_DEFINES remains empty (because
STEALTH_ENABLED is set), which means the appAuthScheme from the .properties file
is passed only to Gradle for manifest substitution but not to Dart. Therefore,
stealth builds must explicitly pass
--dart-define=APP_AUTH_SCHEME=<appAuthScheme> (extracted from the generated
.properties file) when invoking flutter build to ensure Dart's deep-link
handling matches the manifest scheme. Additionally, clarify that lines 117-119
describe behavior specific to non-stealth Android release builds by updating the
section context or heading to distinguish between stealth and non-stealth
configurations.

In `@scripts/stealth/android_manifest_filter.py`:
- Around line 213-229: The ensure_novpn_service() function only checks for
STEALTH_NOVPN_SERVICE_NAME when determining if a no-VPN service already exists,
but it should also recognize pre-existing no-VPN service aliases like
foundation.bridge.SyncService. Modify the condition in the function to check for
all known no-VPN service aliases in addition to STEALTH_NOVPN_SERVICE_NAME, so
that if any variant already exists in the application, the function returns
early instead of appending a duplicate service entry. Additionally, add a
regression test case with a fixture containing foundation.bridge.SyncService to
verify that the function correctly skips appending a new service when this alias
is already present.

In `@scripts/stealth/debrand_kotlin.py`:
- Around line 139-140: Add validation logic before the resource processing
blocks to ensure fail-fast behavior: verify that if --res-source is provided,
--res-output must also be provided (and vice versa), and if --res-overlay is
provided as a path argument, it must be a valid directory before attempting to
process it. If these conditions are not met, the script should exit with an
appropriate error message rather than silently continuing with incomplete
resource operations. This applies to both the main resource processing block at
lines 139-140 and the related section mentioned at lines 177-178.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

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Configuration used: defaults

Review profile: CHILL

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Run ID: 47520e99-ed4b-49c5-80ce-5c68c4be832d

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 1e1c52b and 0e2c4d1.

📒 Files selected for processing (27)

• android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.novpn.xml
• android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml
• android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/LanternApp.kt
• android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/notification/NotificationManager.kt
• android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/service/LanternVpnService.kt
• android/app/src/main/kotlin/org/getlantern/lantern/service/QuickTileService.kt
• android/app/src/main/res/drawable/neutral_app_icon.xml
• android/app/src/main/res/drawable/neutral_notification_icon.xml
• android/app/src/main/res/values/string.xml
• android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/AppHost.kt
• android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/BaseHomeActivity.kt
• android/app/src/stealth/kotlin/foundation/bridge/BridgeCommon.kt
• android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/launch_background.xml
• android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/neutral_app_icon.xml
• android/app/src/stealth/res/drawable/neutral_notification_icon.xml
• android/app/src/stealth/res/values-night/styles.xml
• android/app/src/stealth/res/values/styles.xml
• docs/stealth-android-icons.md
• docs/stealth-android-identity.md
• lib/core/common/app_secrets.dart
• scripts/stealth/android_manifest_filter.py
• scripts/stealth/android_manifest_filter_test.py
• scripts/stealth/debrand_kotlin.py
• scripts/stealth/generate_android_icons.py
• scripts/stealth/generate_android_icons_test.py
• scripts/stealth/generate_android_identity.py
• scripts/stealth/generate_android_identity_test.py

💤 Files with no reviewable changes (1)

• android/app/src/main/res/values/string.xml