Building a native Android app

How to build an Android app with codemagic.yaml

Setting up an Android project

The apps you have available on Codemagic are listed on the Applications page. See how to add additional apps here.

1. On the Applications page, click Set up build next to the app you want to start building.
2. On the popup, select Android App as the project type and click Continue.
3. Create a codemagic.yaml file and add in it the commands to build, test and publish your project. See the full Android workflow example below.
4. Commit the configuration file to the root of your repository.
5. Back in app settings in Codemagic, scan for the codemagic.yaml file by selecting a branch to scan and clicking the Check for configuration file button at the top of the page. Note that you can have different configuration files in different branches.
6. If a codemagic.yaml file is found in that branch, you can click Start your first build and select the branch and workflow to build.
7. Finally, click Start new build to build the app.

Building an Android app

The necessary command for building native Android application goes under scripts in the overall architecture in the codemagic.yaml file. For Android (built with gradle), the script looks like this:

- ./gradlew build

Testing, code signing and publishing an Android app

To test, code sign and publish an Android app:

• The code for testing an Android app also goes under scripts. A few examples of testing can be found here.
• All Android applications need to be signed before release, see how to do that here.
• All generated artifacts can be published to external services. The available integrations currently are email, Slack and Google Play. It is also possible to publish elsewhere with custom scripts (e.g. Firebase App Distribution). Script examples for all of them are available here.

Android workflow example

The following example shows how to set up a workflow that builds your app and publishes to a Google Play internal track.

workflows:
  android-workflow:
    name: Android Workflow
    max_build_duration: 60
    instance_type: mac_mini
    environment:
      vars:
        FCI_KEYSTORE_PATH: /tmp/keystore.keystore
        FCI_KEYSTORE: Encrypted(...) # PUT THE ENCRYPTED KEYSTORE FILE HERE
        FCI_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD: Encrypted(...) # PUT THE ENCRYPTED PASSWORD FOR THE KEYSTORE FILE HERE
        FCI_KEY_PASSWORD: Encrypted(...) # PUT THE ENCRYPTED KEYSTORE ALIAS PASSWORD HERE
        FCI_KEY_ALIAS: Encrypted(...) #PUT THE ENCRYPTED KEYSTORE USERNAME HERE
      node: latest
    triggering:
      events:
        - push
        - tag
        - pull_request
      branch_patterns:
        - pattern: release
          include: true
          source: true
    scripts:
      - name: Set up local properties
        script: echo "sdk.dir=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT" > "$FCI_BUILD_DIR/local.properties"
      - name: Set up key.properties file for code signing
        script: |
          echo $FCI_KEYSTORE | base64 --decode > $FCI_KEYSTORE_PATH
          cat >> "$FCI_BUILD_DIR/android/key.properties" <<EOF
          storePassword=$FCI_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD
          keyPassword=$FCI_KEY_PASSWORD
          keyAlias=$FCI_KEY_ALIAS
          storeFile=$FCI_KEYSTORE_PATH
          EOF          
      - name: Build Android app
        script: ./gradlew assembleRelease
    artifacts:
      - app/build/outputs/**/**/*.apk
    publishing:
      google_play:
        credentials: Encrypted(...) # PUT YOUR ENCRYPTED GOOGLE PLAY JSON CREDENTIALS FILE HERE
        track: internal

Incrementing the version code can be done as follows:

android {
    ...
    
    def appVersionCode = Integer.valueOf(System.env.BUILD_NUMBER ?: 0)
    defaultConfig {
        ...
        versionCode appVersionCode
        ...
    }
}