Build Android App

Android app can be built in debug or release mode - the difference being the keystore used to sign the app. If in release mode, the keystore will let you push to Google Store (of course the assuming that the keystore associated with the user id, who is pushing the app, has gone through the play store registration process)

Since CI process requires building many times before being ready to be release, we will build the app in debug mode and use the .apk generated to pass this to the next step in the CI test Automation step.

Android Build Process

Below are quick high level architecture overview(s) of Android app build process. Minor variations might exist in your specific projects though.

View

Understanding the build process and being able to tweak to suit your requirements is necessary once we have an MVP (minimum viable product) ready. I am a big fan of building the thin slice first, although many inefficiencies might exist in the process. Once we see the result, the confidence and optimism will motivate us to go back and optimize the process. That is a good way to keep the stakeholders happy too and demonstrate continuous progress.

Below is yet another view with Gradle mentioned.

Another view

Output of Build Process

After successful build from source code, we are generally interested in the .apk file, which is the app, ready to be deployed. There are other folders created in the ./app folder inside the project too. Below is a screenshot of the folder contents for reference.