Can you deploy to a device via Gradle from the command line

Question

What the question says really - can you issue any commands directly to gradlew via the command line to build, package and deploy to a device?

Blagoveshchensk

gradle tasks is helpful to see the out of the box tasks - which includes installing (but not starting as stated below) – Pelfrey

Command line is not IDE specific, .i.e. this way would work from Android Studio or Eclipse-based IDE – Silvers

Answer 1

$ gradle installDebug

This will push the debug build apk to device, but you have to manually start the application.

Oscillatory

As below, it's been renamed to "gradle installDefaultFlavorDebug" – Robey

@Robey This is only the case if you use flavors – Dasilva

I'd say ./gradlew iD instead of gradle iD – Moniz

Is that possible to run this command inside installed Gradle Plugin on Eclipse? I get this error: Task 'installDebug' not found in root project 'blahblah'. – Erdda

Answer 2

Since you are using Gradle, you could simple add your own task in build.gradle

task appStart(type: Exec, dependsOn: 'installDebug') {
    // linux 
    commandLine 'adb', 'shell', 'am', 'start', '-n', 'com.example/.MyActivity'

    // windows
    // commandLine 'cmd', '/c', 'adb', 'shell', 'am', 'start', '-n', 'com.example/.MyActivity'      
}

then call it in your project root

$ gradle appStart

Update:

If you are using applicationIdSuffix ".debug", add .debug to the appId only but leave the activity untouched:

'com.example.debug/com.example.MyActivity'

Contention

In addition, the last parameter should be 'com.your.packagename/.path.relative.to.your.packagename.MyActivity' instead of 'com.example/.MyActivity' if your Activity is not in the root of your package. – Crystalcrystalline

Answer 3

1. Build project, install generated apk to device

# at the root dir of project
$ gradle installDebug

2. Open app on device

$ adb shell am start -n yourpackagename/.activityname

Architectonics

alias arun="gradle installDebug; adb shell am start -n com.example.app/.activity.MainActivity" – Haveman

I cannot select installDebug in gradle. There is no suitable task. Has it been renamed? – Cohby

@JonasGröger it seems to have been renamed to installDefaultFlavorDebug – Robey

@Architectonics Could you rename the task because it has been renamed? – Cohby

alias arun="./gradlew installDebug && adb shell am start -n com.example.package/.LauncherActivity" #Runs step2 Only when Step 1 is success – Smokechaser

It's worth noting, the task may be different if you have build variants (as shown in the lower left of Android Studio). For me the command was ./gradlew installDevDebug. This could change the package too: am start -n com.example.example_dev/com.example.example.MainActivity. This stumped me for a while. – Snead

Answer 4

One line sentence:

Build project & Install generated apk & Open app on device

$ ./gradlew installDebug && adb shell am start -n com.example/.activities.MainActivity

Binny

Answer 5

There are three commands to accomplish this:

1. ./gradlew assembleDebug #To build the project

2. adb install -r ./app/build/outputs/apk/app-debug.apk #To install it to the device

3. adb shell am start -n $PACKAGE/$PACKAGE.$ACTIVITY #To launch the application in the device, where $PACKAGE is the development package and $ACTIVITY is the activity to be launched (the launcher activity).

I've been writing a bash script to do this, with other few features.

Gefell

Answer 6

Build -> uninstall old verion -> install new version -> run application.

echo "Build application" && ./gradlew clean build && 
echo "Uninstall application" && adb uninstall [application package] && 
echo "Install application" && adb -d install app/build/outputs/apk/<build type>/[apk name].apk echo "Run application" && 
adb shell am start -n [application package]/.[application name]

Or if you want install and run application in debug type.

./gradlew installDebug && adb shell am start -n [application package]/.[application name]

Lavellelaven

Thanks. @alexander-polomodov – Lavellelaven

Answer 7

A more flexible way to do it is by using monkey:

task runDebug (type: Exec, dependsOn: 'installDebug') {
    commandLine android.getAdbExe().toString(), "shell",
        "monkey",
        "-p", "your.package.name.debugsuffix",
        "-c", "android.intent.category.LAUNCHER", "1"
}

Some advantages to this method:

• getAdbExe doesn't require adb to be on the path and uses the adb version from the sdk pointed to in local.properties.
• The monkey tool allows you to send a launcher intent, so you aren't required to know the name of your activity.

Lanfri

You could instead execute adb shell am start your.package.name.debugsuffix\.Activity – Whitfield

But what if you don't know your activity's name? – Lanfri

Then you shouldn't be writing the build file. – Oppidan

I think its a really bad idea for the build file know explicitly which Activity to run...seems like something separation of concerns goes against. One simple reason - if you rename/move your Activity file, this now requires a build file change. Additionally, intents seem like a better api to run against than a file - I could write a gradle extension that adds default intents and ways to run them, version it, and never need to know anybody's class names. Hard coding is never the right answer. – Nasa

This answer also lacks a way to find the root package - I'd like to get rid of the package name too - e.g. discover it from the manifest instead. – Nasa

@Lanfri using android.intent.category.LAUNCHER 1 you don't need to know the activity. – Butch

Answer 8

task appStart(type: Exec, dependsOn: 'installDebug') {
    commandLine android.adbExe, 'shell', 'am', 'start', '-n', 'com.example/.MyActivity'
}

Tinge

Best solution of run – Quidnunc

Answer 9

I wrote this task to be able to install and also open the application on the device. Since I had multiple buildTypes and flavors with different application ids, it was not feasible to hard code the package name. So I wrote it like this instead:

android.applicationVariants.all { variant ->
    task "open${variant.name.capitalize()}" {
        dependsOn "install${variant.name.capitalize()}"

        doLast {
            exec {
                commandLine "adb shell monkey -p ${variant.applicationId} -c android.intent.category.LAUNCHER 1".split(" ")
            }
        }
    }
}

This would give you open{variant} for every install{variant} task you already have.

Quincey