Android Application -> Firebase Distribution

Steps to configure your android application to distribute to Firebase in CI/CD

Create a service account:

• On the Google Cloud Console, select your project and create a new service account.

  • Add the Firebase App Distribution Admin role.

• Create a private JSON key.

• Enable the Firebase App Distribution API. When prompted, select the project with the same name as your Firebase project.

• Encode the service account creds using base64

base64 service-account-credentials.json

• Then put this encoded value in code build env_vars of the build project with the name SERVICE_ACCOUNT_CREDENTIALS_ENCODED and type PARAMETER_STORE (secrets manager)

• To decode the credentials and write to file, run the below command in build.

echo $SERVICE_ACCOUNT_CREDENTIALS_ENCODED | base64 -di >> <CODE_DIR>/app/service-account-credentials.json

Changes in App Config:

• Add the below dependency in apps/crm-agent-mobile-app/android/build.gradle > buildscript > dependencies

classpath('com.google.firebase:firebase-appdistribution-gradle:4.0.0')

• Add the below line at app/build.gradle (below com.android.application plugin)

apply plugin: 'com.google.firebase.appdistribution'

• Add the below snippet in app/build.gradle > /android > buildTypes > release

firebaseAppDistribution {
	appId="1:1234567890:android:321abc456def7890",
	artifactType="APK"
	releaseNotesFile=""
	serviceCredentialsFile="app/service-account-credentials.json"
	groupsFile=""
}

• Update releaseNotesFile, groupsFile paths.

• groupsFile file contains comma-separated testers' group names.

• For more details on other attributes here, go through Distribute gradle

How to Distribute?

Run the below command to build and distribute the app to firebase.

./gradlew assembleRelease appDistributionUploadRelease