[Due for payment 2026-09-02] [Android] Build fails with "CMake '3.30.5' was not found" when react-native is built from source #98563

Version Number: 9.4.53-3
Reproducible in staging?: Yes (staging deploy build failed)
Reproducible in production?: N/A — CI build failure, never reached production
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: N/A
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): N/A
Logs: https://github.com/Expensify/App/actions/runs/31680429984/job/94384592071
Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: internal
Slack conversation (hyperlinked to channel name):

Action Performed:

1. Merge a PR that adds or modifies a React Native patch under patches/react-native/ (here: #98507, which added react-native+0.86.0+037+fix-stale-font-scale.patch).
2. Cherry-pick it to staging, triggering the Deploy code to staging or production workflow.
3. Watch the Build Android HybridApp / Build Android app job.

Expected Result:

The Android build completes. When no prebuilt React Native artifact matches the current patches hash, the job falls back to compiling React Native from source and that fallback succeeds.

Actual Result:

The Android build failed:

[PatchedArtifacts] No matching artifacts version found for react-hybrid. Building react-native from source.
...
Execution failed for task ':react-native:packages:react-native:ReactAndroid:hermes-engine:configureCMakeMinSizeRel[arm64-v8a]'.
> [CXX1300] CMake '3.30.5' was not found in SDK, PATH, or by cmake.dir property.

Two independent problems combined.

1. The source-build fallback raced artifact publication. The patch changed the patches hash, so no published react-hybrid:react-android artifact matched and Gradle fell back to building React Native from source. com.expensify.react-hybrid.react-android:0.86.0-2 was only published at 08:29:59, while the staging deploy started at 08:04:08 and the Android job failed at 08:10:52.

2. The source-build fallback is not reliable. CMake was never installed on the runner because Gradle skipped the task that installs it:

> Task :...:ReactAndroid:hermes-engine:installCMake UP-TO-DATE
> Task :...:ReactAndroid:hermes-engine:downloadHermes UP-TO-DATE
> Task :...:ReactAndroid:hermes-engine:configureBuildForHermes UP-TO-DATE
> Task :...:hermes-engine:configureCMakeMinSizeRel[arm64-v8a] FAILED

installCMake (ReactAndroid/hermes-engine/build.gradle.kts) runs sdkmanager --install cmake;<version>, i.e. its only effect is on the Android SDK at $ANDROID_HOME/cmake/<version>. It declares no real outputs (CustomExecTask only has optional, unset @OutputFile properties), so Gradle's up-to-date check cannot see that CMake is missing.

The stale state reaches the job via the cache: Mobile-Expensify/Android/settings.gradle uses includeBuild("$newDotNodeModules/react-native"), so the included build's task execution history lives at node_modules/react-native/.gradle — inside the node_modules Blacksmith sticky disk shared across jobs. The Android SDK is not cached. A job that compiled React Native from source committed its history to that disk; a later job on a fresh runner restored it and trusted it. All 65 up-to-date tasks in the failing build belong to node_modules-resident projects (41 react-native, 18 expo-gradle-plugin, 13 gradle-plugin, 5 expo-module-gradle-plugin), none to the app module.

This makes the failure state-dependent, not deterministic. The adhoc build for the same patch (run 31649688731) also compiled React Native from source and passed, because its Gradle state was cold — 1723 actionable tasks: 1723 executed, zero up-to-date — so installCMake actually ran and downloaded cmake-3.30.5-linux.zip.

Workaround:

Re-run the failed job once the matching artifacts have been published (~30 min after merge to main), so the build downloads prebuilt artifacts instead of compiling React Native from source. Blocks staging builds and any further cherry-picks until then.

Platforms:

Select the officially supported platforms where the issue was reproduced:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screenshots/Videos

N/A — CI build failure, see linked workflow logs.

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