CI/CD for Android

Buddy lets you create delivery pipelines that will build, sign and deploy your Android apps to Google Play on a single push to a branch. The pipelines consist of actions that you can configure depending on your needs. Example Andriod pipeline

Configuration is very easy and takes only a couple of minutes.

1. Select your Git repository

Buddy supports all popular Git hosting providers, including GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab. You can also use your own private Git server or host code directly on Buddy. Supported Git providers

2. Add a new delivery pipeline

Enter the pipeline's name, select the trigger mode, and define the branch from which Buddy will fetch your code: Exemplary pipeline settings

3. Add actions

Buddy lets you choose from dozens of predefined actions. In this example, we'll add 3 actions that will perform the following tasks:

• Build your Android application
• Sign app with your key
• Upload APK to Google Play
• Send notification to Slack

3.1 Build your Android application

Look up and click the Build APK action to configure it. Here you can choose the versions of SDK and Build tools and determine the commands to execute. The default commands are:

export ANDROID_HOME="/opt/android/sdk/"
export BUILD_TOOLS_VER="27.0.3"
export PATH=$PATH:/opt/android/sdk/build-tools/$BUILD_TOOLS_VER
#build
chmod +x gradlew
#./gradlew assembleDebug
./gradlew assembleRelease
$$$$$$$

Android build commands

3.2 Sign your application (APK)

Add Sign APK action from the actions menu. Select the path of the APK and provide the keystore with its password: Sign APK configuration

3.3 Deploy APK to Google Play

The package is now ready for deployment. Head to the Android section and select Google Play: Google Play action

When adding the action you can choose what and where should be uploaded: Google Play action configuration

3.4 Send notification to Slack

You can configure Buddy to send your team a message after the deployment. In this example we'll use Slack: Notification actions

4. Google Play: Private keys and permission setup

In order to deliver your application to Google Play you need to do two things:

1. Create a service account with a private key in the .json format
2. Set up the appropriate permissions from the Google Play Developer Console

4.1 Create service account

1. Open the Google Play Developers Console (you’ll need to log in if you haven’t done it already).
2. In the left sidebar, click the Settings → API access: Google Play Console API access page
3. Now click Create Service Account. A pop-up will appear: Creating Service Account
4. Open the Google API Console. Click the Create Service Account button: Google API Console
5. Enter the details and check Furnish a new private key. Make sure to select JSON as the key type: Creating a new private key
6. Click the Create button to create the service account—the private key for the service account will be downloaded.

4.2 Set up permissions

1. Return to the Google Play Developer Console
2. In the Service Accounts panel, find the account that you’ve just created and click Grant Access
3. Here you can adjust permissions for the service account. Make sure to select Release manager in the Role dropdown Granting access to a new user
4. Click Add User when done.

Congratulations! You can now deploy your application to the Google Play store.

5. Summary

Congratulations! You have just automated your entire delivery process. Make a push to the selected branch and watch Buddy fetch, build, and deploy your project. With Continuous Delivery applied, you can now focus on what's really important: developing awesome apps! 🔥