Deploying to Google Play Store using Github Actions

April 16, 2020

Recently I looked into CI/CD for Android using Github Actions. And thanks to open source contributions to Github Actions marketplace, it ended up being easier than I thought it would be.

In particular, I am using these two Actions (both created by Drew Heavner). Thanks Drew!

• sign-android-release Github Action

• upload-google-play Github Action

For a small project of mine I ended up with two YAML files:

• build.yml

• deploy.yml

Build

build.yml simply builds my app including static code analysis using detekt and executing unit tests.

Here is the entire build.yml code:

name: Build

on:
  push:
    branches: 
      - '*'

jobs:
  build:
    name: Build
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v2
    - name: set up JDK 1.8
      uses: actions/setup-java@v1
      with:
        java-version: 1.8

    - name: Build with Gradle
      run: ./gradlew build

Deploy

deploy.yml allows us to automate creating a release and deploying it to Google Play courtesy of Github Actions.

To create a release and have it deployed to Alpha track, you’d perform the following steps:

1. Create a release branch from master. This branch should follow the following naming convention: release/x.y.z where x.y.z is the target Android app version name in SemVar format.

2. Bump both versionCode and versionName in app/build.gradle in the release branch.

3. Create a pull request to merge release branch into master. The deploy Github Action will automatically execute against the release branch and the following steps will be performed in this order:

   • perform static code analysis

   • execute unit tests

   • create and sign release bundle (.aab)

   • git tag the release

   • deploy the release bundle to Alpha track in PlayStore

4. Once the deploy succeeds, you can merge the release PR into master.

Automation means not doing repetitive tasks manually, less room for error and more time for you to solve interesting code problems.

Here is the source code of deploy.yml (note, use release/* when specifying matching branches).

name: Deploy to Alpha

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - release/

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Set up JDK 1.8
        uses: actions/setup-java@v1
        with:
          java-version: 1.8

      - name: Build
        run: ./gradlew build

      - name: Assemble Release Bundle
        run: |
          ./gradlew bundleRelease
      - name: Sign Release
        uses: r0adkll/sign-android-release@v1
        with:
          releaseDirectory: app/build/outputs/bundle/release
          signingKeyBase64: ${{ secrets.SIGNING_KEY }}
          alias: ${{ secrets.ALIAS }}
          keyStorePassword: ${{ secrets.KEY_STORE_PASSWORD }}
          keyPassword: ${{ secrets.KEY_PASSWORD }}

      - name: Tag Release
        run: |
          version_name=${GITHUB_REF##*/}
          echo "Tagging release with tag $version_name"
          git tag $version_name release/$version_name
          git push origin --tags
      - name: Create service_account.json
        run: echo '${{ secrets.SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON }}' > service_account.json

      - name: Deploy to Alpha
        uses: r0adkll/upload-google-play@v1
        with:
          serviceAccountJson: service_account.json
          packageName: com.jshvarts.flows
          releaseFile: app/build/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab
          track: alpha
          whatsNewDirectory: distribution/

Note that every secrets.* reference Github secrets where you’d configure sensitive build context data for each individual repo.

Google Play Console

In order for CI/CD environment to be able to upload .apk or .aab via API, you need to generate Service Account JSON (private key) and add it to Github Secrets as shown above.

To do so, visit Google Play Console to set up API access and don’t forget to click Grant Access when you are done.