Build Android Studio app via command line

Question

I want to build an Android Studio app (the Gradle build system), but I want to do this via the command line.

Answer 1

You're likely here because you want to install it too!

Build

gradlew

(On Windows gradlew.bat)

Then Install

adb install -r exampleApp.apk

(The -r makes it replace the existing copy, add an -s if installing on an emulator)

Bonus

I set up an alias in my ~/.bash_profile, to make it a 2char command.

alias bi="gradlew && adb install -r exampleApp.apk"

(Short for Build and Install)

Answer 2

This is an attempt at a full guide

1. Install Gradle and the Android SDK

Either

• Install these however you see fit
• Run ./gradlew, or gradlew.bat if on Windows
  • chmod +x ./gradlew may be necessary

From this point onwards, gradle refers to running Gradle whichever way you've chosen. Substitute accordingly.

2. Setup the Android SDK

• If you've manually installed the SDK

  • export ANDROID_HOME=<install location>
  • You may want to put that in your ~/.profile if it's not done automatically

• Accept the licenses: yes | sdkmanager

  • sdkmanager can be found in $ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin
  • sdkmanager may have to be run as root

• Try running gradle

  • If there are complaints about licenses or SDKs not being found, fix the directory permissions
    • chown -R user:group $ANDROID_HOME
    • If you're reckless and/or the only user: chmod 777 -R $ANDROID_HOME

3. Building

• gradle tasks lists all tasks that can be run
• :app:[appname] is the prefix of all tasks, which you'll see in the Gradle logs when you're building
  • This can be excluded when running a task

Some essential tasks

• gradle assemble: build all variants of your app
  • Resulting .apks are in app/[appname]/build/outputs/apk/[debug/release]
• gradle assembleDebug or assembleRelease: build just the debug or release versions
• gradle installDebug or installRelease build and install to an attached device
  • Have adb installed
  • Attach a device with USB debugging and USB file transfer enabled
  • Run adb devices, check that your device is listed and device is beside it

Automatically build and install upon changes

This avoids having to continuously run the same commands

gradle -t --continue installDebug

• -t: aka --continuous, automatically re-runs the task after a file is changed
• --continue: Continue after errors. Prevents stopping when errors occur

Run gradle -h for more help

Answer 3

For Mac use this command

  ./gradlew task-name