Android Quickstart

Get your first Android build shipped with ShipItSwifty.

Prerequisites

• Xcode CLI tools or Homebrew (swift, swift build)
• An Android project with a gradlew wrapper at the project root
• A Google Play service account JSON key (for Play Store uploads)
• bundletool on PATH (for validate bundle: brew install bundletool)

1. Install ShipItSwifty

# From source
git clone https://github.com/shipitswifty/shipitswifty
cd shipitswifty
git checkout 0.1.0
swift build -c release
cp .build/release/shipit /usr/local/bin/shipit

2. Auto-detect your project

Run generate from your Android project root. ShipItSwifty detects gradlew, walks through the missing values, and writes an Android-ready Shipfile.yml:

cd /path/to/MyAndroidApp
shipit generate --goal beta --platform android

The generated setup includes:

• Detected platform (.android)
• Required secrets (GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON)
• A ready-to-use Shipfile.yml draft
• The next recommended command

3. Create a Shipfile

shipit generate --goal beta --platform android --non-interactive --output json

Or write one manually:

# Shipfile.yml
platform: android
 
android:
  module: app
  build_variant: release
  package_name: com.example.myapp
  play_track: internal
  keystore_path: ./certs/release.keystore
  keystore_password: ${ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD}
  key_alias: release
  key_password: ${ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD}
 
workflows:
  beta:
    steps:
      - action: test
      - action: archive
      - action: validate_bundle
      - action: play_store

4. Set credentials

export ANDROID_KEYSTORE_PASSWORD=...
export ANDROID_KEY_PASSWORD=...
export GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON="$(cat service-account.json)"

5. Run a dry-run

shipit run beta --dry-run --output json

6. Ship it

shipit run beta --ci --output json

Individual commands

# Build APK
shipit build --platform android
 
# Run unit tests
shipit test --platform android
 
# Build AAB
shipit archive --platform android
 
# Run lint
shipit lint --platform android
 
# Validate the AAB before uploading
shipit validate bundle --bundle ./app/build/outputs/bundle/release/app-release.aab
 
# Upload to Google Play
shipit play-store --platform android

Platform auto-detection

When --platform is omitted, ShipItSwifty checks the current directory:

Google Play service account setup

Use these values for Android setup:

Set up Play API access:

1. Open Google Cloud Console and create or choose a project.
2. Enable the Google Play Developer API for that project.
3. Create a service account in that Google Cloud project.
4. Create and download a JSON key for that service account.
5. Open Google Play Console -> Users and permissions.
6. Invite the service account email address as a user.
7. Grant the permissions needed for your target track.

Typical permissions:

• View app information (read-only) so the account can read app state
• Release apps to testing tracks for internal, alpha, or beta
• Release to production, exclude devices, and use Play App Signing if you want production rollout

Then set one of these:

export GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON="$(cat service-account.json)"
 
# or
export GOOGLE_PLAY_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON_PATH=./service-account.json

Notes:

• shipit generate --platform android can usually infer package_name, but the source of truth is your Gradle applicationId.
• play_track must match the kind of release you intend to publish. For early testing, start with internal.

Troubleshooting

gradlew: Permission denied

chmod +x ./gradlew

bundletool: command not found

brew install bundletool

Google Play upload failed: 401

Check that your service account has the Release Manager role in Google Play Console (not just Google Cloud Console).

Build uses gradle instead of ./gradlew

ShipItSwifty uses ./gradlew when it exists in the working directory or the configured gradlew_path. If neither is present, it falls back to gradle on PATH. Set android.gradlew_path in Shipfile.yml to override.