How to provide login credentials to an automated a

Question

I'm looking for a way to "provide a login" to my app so an automated test "is logged in" and can test the entire app. Currently it's of course blocked by the login-screen.

Because I'm using SmartLock for Passwords, this might be a chance to provide some credentials for the test - but I don't know how.

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Is there some best-practice to provide credentials to / skip the login during a test? I could think of a special buildType / -flavor which is mocking the login but this way it can't be used to test a release build.

It would be great when I could test a final release build which can be uploaded to the store when the test succeeds. This way, I could use the embedded pre-launch-reports in the PlayStore as well (which would be really nice).

Answer 1

Go to Firebase Console->Test Lab->Select Dimensions, then click

Show Advanced Options

and look for

Test account credentials (Optional)

Then fill in as follows:

Enter username resource : name of your username (email) EditText resource, skipping the R.id part, so for R.id.edit_text_email input edit_text_email

Enter password resource : same as above, but for password. Again, skip the R.id, eg. edit_text_password

Enter username : username or email you'd use for testing, eg. [e-mail]

Enter password : password you'd use for testing, eg testTEST123

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It seems Robo (the test bot) types in the credentials as soon as it finds the EditTexts specified with the ID resources, yet may take a little while figuring out which button to click to log in if you have other auth options such as 'Sign in with Google' and 'Continue with Facebook'. After a few minutes of attempts in other services it seems to luckily press the right button to continue through the authentication using the credentials you provide.

At the time of writing this, there is no way to script a login behaviour and as such suggest which buttons to use for authentication, so just use the method above and give Robo enough test time (Test timeout in the Console) in case it sticks around without clicking the right button for a while.

If you provide Sign in With Google button for Robo to use its own Google credentials to sign in, remember that this will not work if you provide the Test account credentials. Ie. to be able to use Sign in with Google make sure your haven't provided any other login credentials, otherwise it will fail.

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Note: You can make Robo fill in other EditText fields using a similar method - check the Test Lab documentation for more info.

Answer 2

For a Robo test (which does power the pre-launch report on the Play Store Developer Console), bypassing sign-in is one of the known limitations, which you can read about at the bottom of the documentation. However, there is a recent capability of Robo that can automatically use a Google account to login. All devices in Test Lab now has a Google account associated with them that will be used whenever a Google account is required to log in.

If you want to test an app that normally requires some other kind of login, you are correct in guessing that you would need to provide an alternative APK configured to not require login. It's not very convenient to do this, especially for apps being tested in alpha/beta. One thing you could try, in order to programmatically decide whether or not to require login, could be to consult a special system property ("firebase.test.lab") that will be set on Test Lab devices. You can read about that here. That is normally used in instrumentation tests, but it may work for Robo tests as well (I haven't tried, and I'll have to confirm this with the team later).