Mocking Intent Extras in Espresso Tests

I’m trying to launch Activity in Espresso. The thing is I want to put mocked extras to the Intent I’m using to launch the Activity. Here is the example.

@RunWith(AndroidJUnit4.class)
public final class NiceActivityTester
{
    @Rule
    public final ActivityTestRule<NiceActivity> activityRule = new ActivityTestRule<>(NiceActivity.class, true, false);

    @Test
    public void justStartPlease() {
        NiceThing niceThing = Mockito.mock(NiceThing.class);
        Mockito.when(niceThing.getName()).thenReturn("Nice!");

        Intent intent = new Intent(InstrumentationRegistry.getTargetContext(), NiceActivity.class);
        intent.putExtra("NICE_THING", niceThing);

        activityRule.launchActivity(intent);
    }
}

Unfortunately unmarshalling Parcelable fails.

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to start activity ComponentInfo{app.application/app.application.activity.NiceActivity}: android.os.BadParcelableException: ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: NiceThing_Proxy
    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2325)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2387)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.access$800(ActivityThread.java:151)
    at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1303)
    at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
    at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:135)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5254)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:372)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:903)
    at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:698)
Caused by: android.os.BadParcelableException: ClassNotFoundException when unmarshalling: NiceThing_Proxy
    at android.os.Parcel.readParcelableCreator(Parcel.java:2295)
    at android.os.Parcel.readParcelable(Parcel.java:2245)
    at android.os.Parcel.readValue(Parcel.java:2152)
    at android.os.Parcel.readArrayMapInternal(Parcel.java:2485)
    at android.os.BaseBundle.unparcel(BaseBundle.java:221)
    at android.os.Bundle.getParcelable(Bundle.java:755)
    at android.content.Intent.getParcelableExtra(Intent.java:5088)
    at app.application.NiceActivity.getNiceThing(NiceActivity.java:40)
    at app.application.NiceActivity.setUpToolbar(NiceActivity.java:30)
    at app.application.NiceActivity.onCreate(NiceActivity.java:20)
    at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:5990)
    at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1106)
    at android.support.test.runner.MonitoringInstrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(MonitoringInstrumentation.java:534)
    at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2278)

Is there any way to use mocked extras with Intent? Maybe some best practices regarding this area?

I really don’t want to make constructors for every model I’m using, some of these classes are quite complex with a dozen of fields. Spying on the extra or the Intent using Mockito doesn’t help.

Use ActivityTestRule and override getActivityIntent

Example found here

public class MainActivityLaunchIntentTest {

    @Rule
    public ActivityTestRule<MainActivity> mActivityRule =
            new ActivityTestRule<MainActivity>(MainActivity.class) {
                @Override
                protected Intent getActivityIntent() {
                    Context targetContext = InstrumentationRegistry.getInstrumentation().getTargetContext();
                    Intent result = new Intent(targetContext, MainActivity.class);
                    result.putExtra("Name", "Earth");
                    return result;
                }
            };

    @Test
    public void shouldShowHelloEarth() {
        onView(withId(R.id.main__tv_hello)).check(matches(withText("Hello Earth!")));
    }
}