[build-tools] Regenerate Android autolinking after cache restore

[expo-tuft]

Why

SDK 54 Android builds can restore React Native's generated android/build/generated/autolinking/autolinking.json from a Windows environment. The file contains absolute C:\\... native module paths. On the Linux worker, Gradle then links each module project to a nonexistent directory and reports No matching variant ... No variants exist.

This cluster produced 465 Datadog events over seven days. The dominant AGP 8.11.0 / SDK 54 cluster accounts for 318 events across 177 accounts and 178 apps. Datadog logs

Related reports identified the stale cross-platform autolinking file and recommended deleting the generated directory as a workaround: expo/expo#42370, expo/expo#47354.

Authored with @AbbanMustafa.

What changed

After restoring the user cache for an Android cloud build, remove only android/build/generated/autolinking. React Native regenerates the cache from the current worker's project paths during Gradle configuration. Other Android build outputs and caches are untouched.

Staging verification

The same SDK 54 project archive, build profile, and fingerprint (1bd5d7db7da9c689701fda1e5e1df15ad382baf2) were run against both staging workers:

• Unpatched staging main: ERRORED with EAS_BUILD_UNKNOWN_GRADLE_ERROR after consuming valid autolinking metadata containing Windows absolute paths.
• Patched worker 808383c: FINISHED and produced an APK.

Staging was restored to current main after verification (deployment).

Tests

• yarn workspace @expo/build-tools test — 1,182 tests passed
• monorepo typecheck — 13 projects passed
• yarn fmt:check — passed
• focused builder tests verify cache restoration happens before autolinking cleanup
• cleanup unit test verifies unrelated Android build output is preserved

[github-actions]

✅ Thank you for adding the changelog entry!

[codecov]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 64.27%. Comparing base (3f74ea3) to head (6cc7f36).
⚠️ Report is 1 commits behind head on main.

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##             main    #4288      +/-   ##
==========================================
+ Coverage   64.05%   64.27%   +0.22%     
==========================================
  Files        1043     1047       +4     
  Lines       48017    48294     +277     
  Branches    10133    10186      +53     
==========================================
+ Hits        30753    31036     +283     
+ Misses      17148    17142       -6     
  Partials      116      116              

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