1891159 - Building Android projects from the CLI should not require Android Studio to be installed/setup

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Fenix :: Tooling, defect, P2)

Description

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Today, Gecko developers need to go through quite a few steps still to build Fenix locally if they make platform changes and want to test them out on mobile apps.

Steps to reproduce

1. mach build
2. Setup JAVA_HOME and ANDROID_HOME environment variables (because these cannot be found unless you use mach gradle).
3. Generate a signing key (with CLI instructions are probably somewhere close to that link).
4. Add autosignReleaseWithDebugKey to mobile/android/{android_app}/local.properties.
5. cd mobile/android/fenix
6. ./gradlew installFenixRelease

Expected behaviour

• After mach build, you should be able to build (from the root or project directory) any of the mobile projects without needing more environment configurations outside of mach bootstrap.
• You should not need to do step 2, 3, or 5.
• At step 6, you should be able to use mach gradle installFenixRelease instead.

Device information

• Firefox version: n/a
• Android device model: n/a
• Android OS version: n/a

Any additional information?

• ANDROID_HOME is needed because the sdk.dir property in local.properties is created by Android Studio.
• JAVA_HOME is needed if you are going to execute gradlew in one of the app projects.
• Both of the above would not need to be set if we can get mach gradle to recognize these projects from the root gradle.

Comment 1

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

This might be a solved problem if bug 1891130 is fixed, but it's not clear if there are more issues that will turn up after that, so filing this for now.

Comment 2

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

Bug 1884675 might be a possible duplicate.

Comment 3

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:bclark, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit BugBot documentation.

Comment 4

[Aaditya Dhingra [:adhingra]]

Attachment: Bug 1891159 - Add mach support for installFenixRelease. r=nalexander

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/26ed437e3b77
Add mach support for installFenixRelease. r=nalexander,geckoview-reviewers,pollymce,ohall

Comment 6

[Cosmin Sabou [:CosminS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/26ed437e3b77

Comment 7

[Aaditya Dhingra [:adhingra]]

Just wanted to add a note here about the landed patch:

This patch adds the command: mach install --app=org.mozilla.fenix.release which replaces steps, 2, 5, 6. Steps 1, 3 and 4 still need to be done before running this command as defined in the description! I don't have any ideas on how to add step 3 to this flow right now but please feel free to reopen this bug and change the priority if needed! Thanks!

Comment 8

[Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] (PTO Feb 24-March 3)]

(In reply to Aaditya Dhingra [:adhingra] from comment #7)

Just wanted to add a note here about the landed patch:

This patch adds the command: mach install --app=org.mozilla.fenix.release which replaces steps, 2, 5, 6. Steps 1, 3 and 4 still need to be done before running this command as defined in the description! I don't have any ideas on how to add step 3 to this flow right now but please feel free to reopen this bug and change the priority if needed! Thanks!

Surely it's possible to generate local keys as part of mach build (or perhaps mach bootstrap), and then use them during the (Gradle) build when required. We did this ages ago, pre-Gradle, using some manual keychain. You might want to mark the generated keys as "debug" keys, so that you can install with them across different devices.

Comment 9

[Jonathan Almeida [:jonalmeida]]

(In reply to Nick Alexander :nalexander [he/him] from comment #8)

Surely it's possible to generate local keys as part of mach build (or perhaps mach bootstrap), and then use them during the (Gradle) build when required. We did this ages ago, pre-Gradle, using some manual keychain. You might want to mark the generated keys as "debug" keys, so that you can install with them across different devices.

Specifically, I think it was this script that is no longer in central (but still in our esr68/fennec branch), but could give you the hints you need: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-esr68/source/mobile/android/debug_sign_tool.py

Comment 10

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

First thank you for adding this feature. Beside that I have one question:

Why do we actually have to specify release or debug? Cannot we retrieve it from the mozconfig settings? A build can only be release or debug so maybe we could just use mach install --app=org.mozilla.fenix and it will automatically pick-up the correct build? Happy to file a follow-up bug if that makes sense.

Comment 11

[Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2]]

Aaditya, maybe you can have a look at my last comment with questions? Thanks.

Comment 12

[Aaditya Dhingra [:adhingra]]

(In reply to Henrik Skupin [:whimboo][⌚️UTC+2] from comment #10)

First thank you for adding this feature. Beside that I have one question:

Why do we actually have to specify release or debug? Cannot we retrieve it from the mozconfig settings? A build can only be release or debug so maybe we could just use mach install --app=org.mozilla.fenix and it will automatically pick-up the correct build? Happy to file a follow-up bug if that makes sense.

Hey, I apologize, I missed this comment before! I wasn't aware that this was an option or that "a build can only be release or debug". I will surely look into it now! Please feel free to file a follow up bug for this! Thanks!