Continuous Integration with Flutter using Gitlab

mobile.cologne Februrary 12th
https://mobile.cologne/2019-02-12-vortragsabend

Pascal (@passsy) presents how to build a Continuous Integration Pipeline for Flutter.

flutter build
flutter test
flutter analyze

He creates a sample project and builds it on gitlab CI, for Android and iOS.

Transcript

1. Continuous Integration
2. grandcentrix.net @grandcentrix We are hiring! +Pascal Welsch @passsy
3. Assumption: Flutter apps have a single codebase
4. Reality: Flutter apps have one codebase and n platform wrappers (with code)
5. Flutter app code Flutter Codebases iOS embedder Android embedder Fuchsia embedder Windows embedder
6. Flutter app code Perfect Flutter Codebase iOS embedder Android embedder Fuchsia embedder Windows embedder
7. Flutter app code Real Flutter Codebase iOS embedder Android embedder Fuchsia embedder Windows embedder Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin Plugin
8. Flutter Core Assets Platform code Plugins Core Embedder Dart Code Your app Flutter Plugins
9. Embedder App App code (Dart) Flutter Core Assets Plugins Platform code Flutter SDK Embedder SDK Responsibility
10. CI steps - Build app - Run unit tests - Run UI tests - Run static analysis - Code coverage - Lint - Danger
11. Difficulties of CI in mobile development - Android Emulator required for Instrumentation Tests - iOS Simulator required for iOS UI Tests - iOS apps can’t be build on linux Jenkins, one of the few solutions offering, runners on OSX
12. Flutter CI - Tests (even UI tests) run headless on every OS - Building/Testing embedder apps requires embedder SDK tools - For iOS/Mac apps you need macOS - For Android you need the Android SDK - For Windows you need new hardware every year
13. Which CI is good for Flutter? - Travis CI - CircleCi - Jenkins - GitLab CI - GitHub Actions - you name it...
14. Which CI? Any CI, but I’ll focus on GitLab CI for today Let’s assume the following is given: $ echo “Let’s build” $ git clone git@github.com:passsy/flutter-app.git
15. $ flutter build $ flutter test $ flutter analyze
16. $ flutter build ❌ command not found: flutter
17. Let’s install flutter git clone git@github.com:flutter/flutter.git export PATH="$PATH:`pwd`/flutter/bin"
18. Let’s install flutter
19. What flutter doesn’t require - Dart - Flutter engine - Java - Android SDK * - Xcode toolchain * * Optional
20. Finally flutter is installed
21. The flutter update problem
22. Make your CI builds reproducible! Never use latest Let all developers and CI use the same flutter version Make flutter part of your project
23. Flutter wrapper github.com/passsy/flutter_wrapper - single executable flutterw which downloads the correct version before executing flutter - Version is part of your repository (submodule)
24. Live Demo
25. $ ./flutterw build
26. $ flutter build -h Available subcommands: aot Build an ahead-of-time compiled snapshot of your app's Dart code. apk Build an Android APK file from your app. bundle Build the Flutter assets directory from your app. ios Build an iOS application bundle (Mac OS X host only).
27. Use a bash script to prevent vendor lock-in
28. Build our build_android.sh #!/bin/bash set -e flutter build apk
29. Execute it on GitlabCI image: "passsy/flutterw:0.1.0" before_script: - ./flutterw doctor --verbose pr: script: - ./ci/build_flutter.sh
30. Execute it on Jenkins pipeline { agent { docker "cirrusci/flutter"} stages { stage(“pr”) { sh ‘ci/pr.sh’ } } }
31. Docker! - Use Docker to build your flutter app - Except for iOS builds - Allows building it locally (gitlab-runner) - Works on almost every modern CI
32. Improve our build_flutter.sh #!/bin/bash set -e flutter format lib flutter analyze flutter test --coverage flutter build android
33. Improve build script ./flutterw test --coverage # parse and show code coverage (via lcov) genhtml -o coverage/html coverage/lcov.info
34. Improve build script # format with line width 120 ./.flutter/bin/cache/dart-sdk/bin/dartfmt --set-exit-if-changed -w -l 120 lib test
35. Build iOS on macOS - Use gitlab-runner and make your MacBook a runner -
36. Build android - Create build_android.sh - Works in docker container
37. Create releases - Use existing tools of the embedder platform - -
38. Create releases (android) - release_android.sh - Use gradle plugin to publish to play store github.com/Triple-T/gradle-play-publisher - ./gradlew publishApk
39. Create releases (ios) - Use what Sebastian suggested in his talk - Fastlane - xcbuild is your friend
40. Codemagic - It works - Runs tests, builds apps - Easy way to get running for iOS without a Mac - I don’t trust them
41. Thanks
42. Flutter Workshop Hot Reload Hackathon Tuesday, March 12, 2019 Cologne, grandcentrix https://flutter.school