fix: remove the dependency on protobuf-lite for tombstones

[supervacuus]

📜 Description

As the title says, it replaces the dependency on a huge generic protobuf decoder with a tiny tombstone-specific package called epitaph (GH, central). The dependency is MIT licensed and can be incorporated into the Sentry ecosystem in whichever ways make sense down the road.

💡 Motivation and Context

Part of the wrap-up milestone in https://linear.app/getsentry/project/tombstone-support-android-0024cb6e3ffd

• eliminates conflicts with client dependencies (Sentry Android SDK (8.30.0) incompatible with Firebase dependencies #5039, fix(dependencies): Downgrade protobuf-javalite from 4.33.1 to 3.25.8 #5044)
• reduces the size of the release AAR by 25%; 371 KiB instead 495 KiB (compared with 8.34.0)
• since the tombstone protobuf format changes very infrequently (many years between changes), having a low dependency direct decoder is a sensible trade-off for a mobile SDK.

https://linear.app/getsentry/issue/ANDROID-267/switch-to-dependency-free-protobuf-runtime

💚 How did you test it?

Tested the same way as the dependency it replaces. The library, though, has a battery of test cases for encoding errors and edge cases.

📝 Checklist

• I added GH Issue ID & Linear ID
• I added tests to verify the changes.
• No new PII added or SDK only sends newly added PII if sendDefaultPII is enabled.
• I updated the docs if needed.
• I updated the wizard if needed.
• Review from the native team if needed.
• No breaking change or entry added to the changelog.
• No breaking change for hybrid SDKs or communicated to hybrid SDKs.

🔮 Next steps

[github-actions]

Semver Impact of This PR

🟢 Patch (bug fixes)

📋 Changelog Preview

This is how your changes will appear in the changelog.
Entries from this PR are highlighted with a left border (blockquote style).

---

New Features ✨

• (anr) Profile main thread when ANR and report ANR profiles to Sentry by markushi in #4899

Bug Fixes 🐛

• Remove the dependency on protobuf-lite for tombstones by supervacuus in #5157

---

_{🤖 This preview updates automatically when you update the PR.}

[cursor]

Cursor Bugbot has reviewed your changes and found 1 potential issue.

Bugbot Autofix prepared a fix for the issue found in the latest run.

• ✅ Fixed: NPE in close() when tombstoneStream is null
  • Added a null guard in TombstoneParser.close() so try-with-resources no longer throws when constructed without an InputStream.

Or push these changes by commenting:

@cursor push 9737b16a1a

Preview (9737b16a1a)

diff --git a/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/internal/tombstone/TombstoneParser.java b/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/internal/tombstone/TombstoneParser.java
--- a/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/internal/tombstone/TombstoneParser.java
+++ b/sentry-android-core/src/main/java/io/sentry/android/core/internal/tombstone/TombstoneParser.java
@@ -349,6 +349,8 @@
 
   @Override
   public void close() throws IOException {
-    tombstoneStream.close();
+    if (tombstoneStream != null) {
+      tombstoneStream.close();
+    }
   }
 }

_{This Bugbot Autofix run was free. To enable autofix for future PRs, go to the Cursor dashboard.}

[markushi]

Nice straight-forward replacement, looks good to me!

[romtsn]

cool stuff!

[sentry]

Sentry Build Distribution

App	Version	Configuration
SDK Size	8.34.1 (1)	release

[github-actions]

Performance metrics 🚀

	Plain	With Sentry	Diff
Startup time	333.94 ms	389.08 ms	55.14 ms
Size	0 B	0 B	0 B

Baseline results on branch: main

Startup times

Revision	Plain	With Sentry	Diff
ee747ae	386.94 ms	431.43 ms	44.49 ms
539ca63	313.51 ms	355.43 ms	41.92 ms
22f4345	312.78 ms	347.40 ms	34.62 ms
9fbb112	401.87 ms	515.87 ms	114.00 ms
fcec2f2	357.47 ms	447.32 ms	89.85 ms
d15471f	361.89 ms	378.07 ms	16.18 ms
d15471f	303.49 ms	439.08 ms	135.59 ms
0eaac1e	320.04 ms	369.52 ms	49.48 ms
a5ab36f	320.47 ms	389.77 ms	69.30 ms
27d7cf8	369.82 ms	422.62 ms	52.80 ms

App size

Revision	Plain	With Sentry	Diff
ee747ae	1.58 MiB	2.10 MiB	530.95 KiB
539ca63	1.58 MiB	2.12 MiB	551.41 KiB
22f4345	1.58 MiB	2.29 MiB	719.83 KiB
9fbb112	1.58 MiB	2.11 MiB	539.18 KiB
fcec2f2	1.58 MiB	2.12 MiB	551.50 KiB
d15471f	1.58 MiB	2.13 MiB	559.54 KiB
d15471f	1.58 MiB	2.13 MiB	559.54 KiB
0eaac1e	1.58 MiB	2.19 MiB	619.17 KiB
a5ab36f	1.58 MiB	2.12 MiB	555.26 KiB
27d7cf8	1.58 MiB	2.12 MiB	549.42 KiB