Include /libs/ folder in aar

Question

Feel like Im going mad here - this must be so simple!

I have an android aar which I have built from gradle assembleRelease and also using the maven-publish plugin. I thought that /libs/ was included by default but evidently not.

Android tools site shows its an optional include

http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/aar-format

but for the life of me I don't see where this is configured.

I have asked a related Q Include folder in Gradle artifact but I dont see this as a duplicate as thats a generic gradle question really whereas this is aar specific and may be solved outside of gradle.

Edit I have also asked on the Gradle forum

Answer 1

The aar packages local libraries in libs/ so you need to have local jar dependencies.

dependencies {
  compile fileTree(include: ['*.jar'], dir: 'libs')
}

Answer 2

When the maven plugin runs uploadArchives then it will create a pom file that tells maven or gradle what dependencies your aar needs. Gradle will handle downloading the jar files and placing them in your class path for the build.

I commented on your other question as well

*reference: https://maven.apache.org/pom.html#Dependencies

*=gradle is backed by maven for dependency management so artifacts available to maven are also available to gradle and vice versa