Engage SDK Integration

Boost app engagement by reaching your users where they are. Integrate Engage SDK to deliver personalized recommendations and continuation content directly to users across multiple on-device surfaces, like Collections , Entertainment Space , and the Play Store. The integration adds less than 50 KB (compressed) to the average APK and takes most apps about a week of developer time. Learn more at our business site.

This guide contains instructions for developer partners to deliver social media content to Engage content surfaces.

Category support and surfaces

Engage SDK surface eligibility is based on your app's content category. Use the following table to determine your eligibility for specific surfaces:

Android skills

View on GitHub

Integrate Engage SDK

Use the Engage SDK Android skill to integrate, debug, and resolve implementation issues. To install the skill from the Android CLI, run:

android skills add engage-sdk-integration

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Integration detail

The following section captures the integration detail.

Terminology

Recommendation clusters show personalized suggestions from an individual developer partner.

Your recommendations take the following structure:

Recommendation Cluster: UI view that contains a group of recommendations from the same developer partner.

Each Recommendation Cluster consists of one of the following two types of entities :

• PortraitMediaEntity

• SocialPostEntity

PortraitMediaEntity must contain 1 portrait image for the post. Profile and Interaction related metadata are optional.

• Post

  • Image in portrait mode and Timestamp, or

  • Image in portrait mode + text content and Timestamp

• Profile

  • Avatar, Name or Handle, Additional image

• Interactions

  • Count and label only, or

  • Count and visual (icon)

SocialPostEntity contains profile, post and interaction related metadata.

• Profile

  • Avatar, Name or Handle, additional text, additional image

• Post

  • Text and Timestamp, or

  • Rich media (image or rich URL) and Timestamp, or

  • Text and rich media (image or rich URL) and Timestamp, or

  • Video preview (thumbnail and duration) and Timestamp

• Interactions

  • Count & label only, or

  • Count & visual (icon)

Pre-work

Minimum API level: 19

Add the com.google.android.engage:engage-core library to your app:

dependencies {
    // Make sure you also include that repository in your project's build.gradle file.
    implementation 'com.google.android.engage:engage-core:1.6.0'
}

Summary

The design is based on an implementation of a bound service.

The data a client can publish is subject to the following limits for different cluster types:

Step 1: Provide entity data

The SDK has defined different entities to represent each item type. The SDK supports the following entities for the Social category:

1. PortraitMediaEntity

2. SocialPostEntity

The following charts outline available attributes and requirements for each type.

PortraitMediaEntity

SocialPostEntity

Image specifications

The images are required to be hosted on public CDNs so that Google can access them.

File formats

PNG, JPG, static GIF, WebP

Maximum file size

5120 KB

Additional recommendations

• Image safe area: Put your important content in the center 80% of the image.

• Use a transparent background so that the image can be properly displayed in Dark and Light theme settings.

Step 2: Provide Cluster data

It is recommended to have the content publish job executed in the background (for example, using WorkManager) and scheduled on a regular basis or on an event basis (for example, every time the user opens the app or when the user just followed a new account)

AppEngageSocialClient is responsible for publishing social clusters.

There are following APIs to publish clusters in the client:

• isServiceAvailable

• publishRecommendationClusters

• publishUserAccountManagementRequest

• updatePublishStatus

• deleteRecommendationsClusters

• deleteUserManagementCluster

• deleteClusters

isServiceAvailable

This API is used to check if the service is available for integration and whether the content can be presented on the device.

For Engage SDK v1.6.0 and higher (Recommended)

Android skills

View on GitHub

Engage SDK integration

To install the skill from the Android CLI, run:

android skills add engage-sdk-integration

If your team uses AI coding tools (such as Gemini in Android Studio), you can automate this migration by prompting your AI assistant:

Use the engage-sdk-integration skill to use Engage SDK 1.6.0 and refactor isServiceAvailable to pass ServiceAvailabilityRequest for publishing all cluster types.

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You can check the service availability for every cluster type that you intend to publish. The isServiceAvailable API accepts a request object, ServiceAvailabilityRequest, which contains the cluster types for which service availability needs to be checked. You can find the ClusterType enum values required for ServiceAvailabilityRequest from the following table.

Kotlin

val request = ServiceAvailabilityRequest.Builder()
    .addIntendedClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_CONTINUATION)
    .addIntendedClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION)
    .build()

client.isServiceAvailable(request).addOnCompleteListener { task ->
    if (task.isSuccessful) {
        val availabilityMap = task.result
        if (availabilityMap[ClusterType.TYPE_CONTINUATION] == true) {
            // Proceed with publishing continuation content
        }
        if (availabilityMap[ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION] == true) {
            // Proceed with publishing recommendation content
        }
    } else {
        // The IPC call itself fails, proceed with error handling logic here,
        // such as retry.
    }
}

Java

ServiceAvailabilityRequest request =
    new ServiceAvailabilityRequest.Builder()
        .addIntendedClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_CONTINUATION)
        .addIntendedClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION)
        .build();

client.isServiceAvailable(request).addOnCompleteListener(task -> {
    if (task.isSuccessful()) {
        Map<Integer, Boolean> availabilityMap = task.getResult();
        if (Boolean.TRUE.equals(availabilityMap.get(ClusterType.TYPE_CONTINUATION))) {
            // Proceed with publishing continuation content
        }
        if (Boolean.TRUE.equals(availabilityMap.get(ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION))) {
            // Proceed with publishing recommendation content
        }
    } else {
        // The IPC call itself fails, proceed with error handling logic here,
        // such as retry.
    }
});

Conditional Service Availability Feature

Some integrated apps request a special configuration that enables and disables the Engage service intermittently to reduce serving costs. However, this intermittent content ingestion strategy negatively affects the user experience: stale content won't be presented, and some surfaces won't be served.

Starting with v1.6.0, the Engage SDK allows checking availability for specific cluster types. If you are interested in opting into this feature for any cluster type, contact [email protected].

For SDK versions prior to v1.6.0 (Deprecated)

Kotlin

client.isServiceAvailable.addOnCompleteListener { task ->
    if (task.isSuccessful) {
        // Handle IPC call success
        if(task.result) {
          // Service is available on the device, proceed with content publish
          // calls.
        } else {
          // Service is not available, no further action is needed.
        }
    } else {
      // The IPC call itself fails, proceed with error handling logic here,
      // such as retry.
    }
}

Java

client.isServiceAvailable().addOnCompleteListener(task - > {
    if (task.isSuccessful()) {
        // Handle success
        if(task.getResult()) {
          // Service is available on the device, proceed with content publish
          // calls.
        } else {
          // Service is not available, no further action is needed.
        }
    } else {
      // The IPC call itself fails, proceed with error handling logic here,
      // such as retry.
    }
});

[!NOTE] Note: We highly recommend keeping a periodic job running to check if the service becomes available at a later point in time. The availability of the service may change with Android version upgrades, app upgrades, installs, and uninstalls. By ensuring periodic job checks at a certain time interval, data can be published once the service becomes available.

publishRecommendationClusters

This API is used to publish a list RecommendationCluster objects.

A RecommendationCluster object can have the following attributes:

[!IMPORTANT] Important: The publish APIs are upsert APIs; it replaces the existing content. Don't call delete and publish APIs subsequently to replace the content as the publish APIs do that inherently.

[!IMPORTANT] Important: For social apps, it's critical to update recommendations after each app usage. Social app users are more interested in the most recent recommendations and ideally would like to see a post at most once.

Kotlin

client.publishRecommendationClusters(
            PublishRecommendationClustersRequest.Builder()
                .addRecommendationCluster(
                    RecommendationCluster.Builder()
                        .addEntity(entity1)
                        .addEntity(entity2)
                        .setTitle("Latest from your friends")
                        .build())
                .build())

Java

client.publishRecommendationClusters(
            new PublishRecommendationClustersRequest.Builder()
                .addRecommendationCluster(
                    new RecommendationCluster.Builder()
                        .addEntity(entity1)
                        .addEntity(entity2)
                        .setTitle("Latest from your friends")
                        .build())
                .build());

When the service receives the request, the following actions take place within one transaction:

• All existing Recommendation Cluster data is removed.

• Data from the request is parsed and stored in new Recommendation Clusters.

In case of an error, the entire request is rejected and the existing state is maintained.

publishUserAccountManagementRequest

This API is used to publish a Sign In card . The signin action directs users to the app's sign in page so that the app can publish content (or provide more personalized content)

The following metadata is part of the Sign In Card -

[!IMPORTANT] Important: The publish APIs are upsert APIs; it replaces the existing content. Don't call delete and publish APIs subsequently to replace the content as the publish APIs do that inherently.

Kotlin

var SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY =
      SignInCardEntity.Builder()
          .addPosterImage(
              Image.Builder()
                  .setImageUri(Uri.parse("http://www.x.com/image.png"))
                  .setImageHeightInPixel(500)
                  .setImageWidthInPixel(500)
                  .build())
          .setActionText("Sign In")
          .setActionUri(Uri.parse("http://xx.com/signin"))
          .build()

client.publishUserAccountManagementRequest(
            PublishUserAccountManagementRequest.Builder()
                .setSignInCardEntity(SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY)
                .build());

Java

SignInCardEntity SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY =
      new SignInCardEntity.Builder()
          .addPosterImage(
              new Image.Builder()
                  .setImageUri(Uri.parse("http://www.x.com/image.png"))
                  .setImageHeightInPixel(500)
                  .setImageWidthInPixel(500)
                  .build())
          .setActionText("Sign In")
          .setActionUri(Uri.parse("http://xx.com/signin"))
          .build();

client.publishUserAccountManagementRequest(
            new PublishUserAccountManagementRequest.Builder()
                .setSignInCardEntity(SIGN_IN_CARD_ENTITY)
                .build());

When the service receives the request, the following actions take place within one transaction:

• Existing UserAccountManagementCluster data from the developer partner is removed.

• Data from the request is parsed and stored in the updated UserAccountManagementCluster Cluster.

In case of an error, the entire request is rejected and the existing state is maintained.

updatePublishStatus

If for any internal business reason, none of the clusters is published, we strongly recommend updating the publish status using the updatePublishStatus API. This is important because :

• Providing the status in all scenarios, even when the content is published (STATUS == PUBLISHED), is critical to populate dashboards that use this explicit status to convey the health and other metrics of your integration.

• If no content is published but the integration status isn't broken (STATUS == NOT_PUBLISHED), Google can avoid triggering alerts in the app health dashboards. It confirms that content is not published due to an expected situation from the provider's standpoint.

• It helps developers provide insights into when the data is published versus not.

• Google may use the status codes to nudge the user to do certain actions in the app so they can see the app content or overcome it.

The list of eligible publish status codes are :

// Content is published
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.PUBLISHED,

// Content is not published as user is not signed in
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN,

// Content is not published as user is not subscribed
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SUBSCRIPTION,

// Content is not published as user location is ineligible
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_INELIGIBLE_LOCATION,

// Content is not published as there is no eligible content
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_NO_ELIGIBLE_CONTENT,

// Content is not published as the feature is disabled by the client
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_FEATURE_DISABLED_BY_CLIENT,

// Content is not published as the feature due to a client error
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_CLIENT_ERROR,

// Content is not published as the feature due to a service error
// Available in v1.3.1
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_SERVICE_ERROR,

// Content is not published due to some other reason
// Reach out to engage-developers@ before using this enum.
AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_OTHER

If the content is not published due to a user not logged in, Google would recommend publishing the Sign In Card. If for any reason providers are not able to publish the Sign In Card then we recommend calling the updatePublishStatus API with the status code NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN

Kotlin

client.updatePublishStatus(
   PublishStatusRequest.Builder()
     .setStatusCode(AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN)
     .build())

Java

client.updatePublishStatus(
    new PublishStatusRequest.Builder()
        .setStatusCode(AppEngagePublishStatusCode.NOT_PUBLISHED_REQUIRES_SIGN_IN)
        .build());

deleteRecommendationsClusters

This API is used to delete the content of Recommendation Clusters.

[!IMPORTANT] Important: Delete APIs should only be called when there is no content to publish. Don't call delete and publish APIs subsequently to replace the content as the publish APIs do that inherently. Reach out to [email protected] before using delete APIs.

Kotlin

client.deleteRecommendationsClusters()

Java

client.deleteRecommendationsClusters();

When the service receives the request, it removes the existing data from the Recommendation Clusters. In case of an error, the entire request is rejected and the existing state is maintained.

deleteUserManagementCluster

This API is used to delete the content of UserAccountManagement Cluster.

[!IMPORTANT] Important: Delete APIs should only be called when there is no content to publish. Don't call delete and publish APIs subsequently to replace the content as the publish APIs do that inherently. Reach out to [email protected] before using delete APIs.

Kotlin

client.deleteUserManagementCluster()

Java

client.deleteUserManagementCluster();

When the service receives the request, it removes the existing data from the UserAccountManagement Cluster. In case of an error, the entire request is rejected and the existing state is maintained.

deleteClusters

This API is used to delete the content of a given cluster type.

[!IMPORTANT] Important: Delete APIs should only be called when there is no content to publish. Don't call delete and publish APIs subsequently to replace the content as the publish APIs do that inherently. Reach out to [email protected] before using delete APIs.

Kotlin

client.deleteClusters(
    DeleteClustersRequest.Builder()
      .addClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION)
      ...
      .build())

Java

client.deleteClusters(
            new DeleteClustersRequest.Builder()
                .addClusterType(ClusterType.TYPE_RECOMMENDATION)
                ...
                .build());

When the service receives the request, it removes the existing data from all clusters matching the specified cluster types. Clients can choose to pass one or many cluster types. In case of an error, the entire request is rejected and the existing state is maintained.

Error handling

It is highly recommended to listen to the task result from the publish APIs such that a follow-up action can be taken to recover and resubmit an successful task.

client.publishRecommendationClusters(
              new PublishRecommendationClustersRequest.Builder()
                  .addRecommendationCluster(...)
                  .build())
          .addOnCompleteListener(
              task -> {
                if (task.isSuccessful()) {
                  // do something
                } else {
                  Exception exception = task.getException();
                  if (exception instanceof AppEngageException) {
                    @AppEngageErrorCode
                    int errorCode = ((AppEngageException) exception).getErrorCode();
                    if (errorCode == AppEngageErrorCode.SERVICE_NOT_FOUND) {
                      // do something
                    }
                  }
                }
              });

The error is returned as an AppEngageException with the cause included as an error code.

Step 3: Handle broadcast intents

In addition to making publish content API calls through a job, it is also required to set up a BroadcastReceiver to receive the request for a content publish.

The goal of broadcast intents is mainly for app reactivation and forcing data sync. Broadcast intents are not designed to be sent very frequently. It is only triggered when the Engage Service determines the content might be stale (for example, a week old). That way, there is more confidence that the user can have a fresh content experience, even if the application has not been executed for a long period of time.

The BroadcastReceiver must be set up in the following two ways:

• Dynamically register an instance of the BroadcastReceiver class using Context.registerReceiver(). This enables communication from applications that are still live in memory.

Kotlin

class AppEngageBroadcastReceiver : BroadcastReceiver(){
  // Trigger recommendation cluster publish when PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION
  // broadcast is received
}

fun registerBroadcastReceivers(context: Context){
  var  context = context
  context = context.applicationContext

// Register Recommendation Cluster Publish Intent
  context.registerReceiver(AppEngageBroadcastReceiver(),
                           IntentFilter(Intents.ACTION_PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION),
                           com.google.android.engage.service.BroadcastReceiverPermissions.BROADCAST_REQUEST_DATA_PUBLISH_PERMISSION,
                           /*scheduler=*/null)
}

Java

class AppEngageBroadcastReceiver extends BroadcastReceiver {
// Trigger recommendation cluster publish when PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION broadcast
// is received
}

public static void registerBroadcastReceivers(Context context) {

context = context.getApplicationContext();

// Register Recommendation Cluster Publish Intent
context.registerReceiver(new AppEngageBroadcastReceiver(),
                         new IntentFilter(com.google.android.engage.service.Intents.ACTION_PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION),
                         com.google.android.engage.service.BroadcastReceiverPermissions.BROADCAST_REQUEST_DATA_PUBLISH_PERMISSION,
                         /*scheduler=*/null);
}

• Statically declare an implementation with the <receiver> tag in your AndroidManifest.xml file. This allows the application to receive broadcast intents when it is not running, and also allows the application to publish the content.

  <application> <receiver android:name=".AppEngageBroadcastReceiver" android:permission="com.google.android.engage.REQUEST_ENGAGE_DATA" android:exported="true" android:enabled="true"> <intent-filter> <action android:name="com.google.android.engage.action.PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION" /> </intent-filter> </receiver> </application>

The following intents will be sent by the service:

• com.google.android.engage.action.PUBLISH_RECOMMENDATION It is recommended to start a publishRecommendationClusters call when receiving this intent.

Integration workflow

For a step-by-step guide on verifying your integration after it is complete, see Engage developer integration workflow.

FAQs

See Engage SDK Frequently Asked Questions for FAQs.

Contact

Contact [email protected] if there are any questions during the integration process. Our team will reply as soon as possible.

Next steps

After completing this integration, your next steps are as follows:

• Send an email to [email protected] and attach your integrated APK that is ready for testing by Google.

• Google performs a verification and reviews internally to make sure the integration works as expected. If changes are needed, Google contacts you with any necessary details.

• When testing is complete and no changes are needed, Google contacts you to notify you that you can start publishing the updated and integrated APK to the Play Store.

• After Google has confirmed that your updated APK has been published to the Play Store, your Recommendation, clusters will be published and visible to users.