MAD Skills Gradle and AGP build APIs Wrap Up!

Posted by Murat Yener, Android Developer Advocate

That’s a wrap! We’ve just finished a new MAD skills series on Gradle and Android Gradle plugin build APIs. In this series we shifted gears and took a look at how you can extend your build by using Gradle and brand new Android Gradle plugin APIs.

We covered how Gradle works, how you can configure the Android Gradle plugin, and learned which APIs to use to help customize your builds and keep your builds fast and efficient. If you missed this series or some of the episodes, here is a quick recap of what to expect.

Episode 1: Configure your build - Intro to Gradle and AGP

Gradle is a general purpose build tool which can build specific project types by using plugins. Plugins introduce a way to configure the build and decide which tasks are needed to build that project. Gradle configures and executes these tasks in different phases. Understanding how the build phases work and how to configure the Android Gradle plugin can help you customize your build according to your project’s needs and keep build times efficient.

You can check out the following video or if you prefer, read the article.

Episode 2: How to write a plugin

Extending your build by writing your own plugin gives you a way to customize your build even further! Starting with version 7.0, Android Gradle Plugin now offers stable extension points for manipulating variant configuration and the produced build artifacts. In this episode we started with writing a custom task and used the new Variant API to initialize and modify properties of Variants.

You can find the same content in article form.

Episode 3: Taking your plugin to the next step

As we saw in previous episodes, keeping your config phase fast and resolving values lazily can help keep your builds efficient. Providers and Properties let you pass inputs and receive outputs from Gradle tasks lazily. In this episode we also take a look at the new Artifacts API to access and modify the app manifest.

Check out the article or the following video.

Episode 4: Gradle and AGP Build APIs Community Tip

In the last episode in the series, we feature Alex Saveau, who maintains the Gradle Play Publisher and Version Orchestrator plugins. Alex shares a tip on using modern AGP and Gradle APIs to manipulate Android build artifacts.

To learn more, check out the following video.

Episode 6: Live Q&A

Finally, we wrapped up this series with a live Q&A session where we answered your questions. If you missed the Q&A, make sure to check out the following recording.

If you are interested to learn more, make sure to check out the resources and the Gradle recipes repo linked below! See you in the next MAD Skills series.

Recipes repo: https://github.com/android/gradle-recipes

Extend the Android Gradle plugin: https://developer.android.com/studio/build/extend-agp

AGP Roadmap: https://goo.gle/3EuNYXz