From Manual APKs to Automated Play Store Releases: Every Mistake We Made Shipping Two Android Apps From One Codebase

We built one Expo React Native codebase that ships two separate Android apps (staff + student), then tried to automate releasing both to Google Play. Here's every wrong turn: EAS free-tier limits, a versionCode that silently drifted, a Play Store error that had nothing to do with what it said, and a one-line GitHub Actions bug that invalidated an entire workflow file.