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[Eng] iOS - Update app site association file
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Description

Background

Our current AASA file recognizes any universal link at *.wikipedia.org with the /wiki/ path.

Editing flow interruption

We do not want the app to intercept users while they are in the middle of editing an article in the browser via visual editor. To do this, we could try adding editor to the app store association file's exclude paths and veaction=edit as an excluded query item.

https://{lang}.wikipedia.org/wiki/{articletitle}#/editor
https://{lang}.wikipedia.org/wiki/{articletitle}?veaction=edit&section=0&returntoapp=1

Authentication interruption

There is also a risk of the app interrupting when going through the editing authentication flow (see https://wikimedia.slack.com/archives/C06UBL7NBFT/p1783548816850159). This is because the authentication domain is auth.wikimedia.org, instead of our usual wikipedia.org domains that the app recognizes. When the app is leaving the auth domain to the wikipedia.org (which the app recognizes), the app takes over.

To improve this flow, I recommend adding exclusions to Special wiki pages as well. In the slack screencast, interrupts are occurring when navigating to:

/wiki/Main_Page
/wiki/Special:Contributions and
/wiki/Special:Watchlist

Contributions and Watchlist are fairly editor-focused flows, if we add those urls as exclusions, the app will not take over during that navigation.

AASA file proposal

Note: Seeking out "Special:" might mean only EN wiki flows are improved. We may need to add individual urls for Special magic word translations as well (for example: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Especial:Contribuciones/TSevener_(WMF))

Another Note: I am also adding another attempted fix for T343746: Fix for apple-app-site-association for thankyou.wikipedia.org in this proposal. While we're here updating association files, we might as well try to fix that too.

{
  "activitycontinuation": {
    "apps": [
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.developer",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfalpha",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfbeta",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.adhoc",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia"
    ]
  },
  "webcredentials": {
    "apps": [
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.developer",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfalpha",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfbeta",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.adhoc",
      "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia"
    ]
  },
  "applinks": {
    "details": [
      {
        "appIDs": [
          "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.developer",
          "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfalpha",
          "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.tfbeta",
          "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia.adhoc",
          "AKK7J2GV64.org.wikimedia.wikipedia"
        ],
        "components": [
          {
            "/": "/wiki/Thank_You*",
            "exclude": true,
            "comment": "Exclude thank you pages"
          },
          {
            "/": "/wiki/Special:*",
            "exclude": true,
            "comment": "Exclude Special: pages"
          },
          {
            "/": "/wiki/*",
            "?": { "veaction": "edit" },
            "exclude": true,
            "comment": "Exclude edit actions"
          },
          {
            "/": "/wiki/*",
            "#": "/editor*",
            "exclude": true,
            "comment": "Exclude editor fragment"
          },
          {
            "/": "/wiki/*",
            "comment": "Match all other wiki pages"
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Location in Repo - https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T343746#9075010

Event Timeline

Tsevener updated the task description. (Show Details)
Tsevener renamed this task from [Eng] iOS - Update app store association file to [Eng] iOS - Update app site association file.Fri, Jul 17, 9:27 PM
Tsevener updated the task description. (Show Details)

Needs estimation before being brought into sprint

Tsevener triaged this task as Medium priority.Tue, Jul 21, 5:35 PM

Change #1315128 had a related patch set uploaded (by Tsevener; author: Tsevener):

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Add new Apple app site association file for Test Wiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1315128

Change #1315141 had a related patch set uploaded (by Tsevener; author: Tsevener):

[operations/puppet@production] Add rewrite rule for Test Wiki Apple app site association file

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1315141

Change #1315128 merged by jenkins-bot:

[operations/mediawiki-config@master] Add new Apple app site association file for Test Wiki

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1315128

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-08-06T20:09:24Z] <cjming@deploy1003> Started scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1315128|Add new Apple app site association file for Test Wiki (T432412)]]

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-08-06T20:11:14Z] <cjming@deploy1003> cjming, tsev: Backport for [[gerrit:1315128|Add new Apple app site association file for Test Wiki (T432412)]] synced to the testservers (see https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mwdebug). Changes can now be verified there.

Mentioned in SAL (#wikimedia-operations) [2026-08-06T20:18:46Z] <cjming@deploy1003> Finished scap sync-world: Backport for [[gerrit:1315128|Add new Apple app site association file for Test Wiki (T432412)]] (duration: 09m 22s)