Set up an Android CI using GitHub Actions

In any software development process, the CI/CD is a crucial piece that helps teams catch the problems early, improve the code quality, automate the release process, among other benefits.

At Innovorder, we used to work with a legacy CI/CD based on Google Cloud Build. It was hard to maintain mainly because no-one in the team really knew how it worked and because of a lack of good documentation, so we ended up deciding to build a new and more reliable CI/CD.

In this session, I’ll share the story of how we migrated to GitHub Actions. Outline challenges we faced and how we solved them. And finally show how we went even further, by improving on the previously existant CI in different ways, including :

- improving the use of resources by canceling the workflows running on the previous commits when a new commit is pushed to a branch
- display the results of the Unit Tests directly in the Workflow result page
- add timeout to steps that can run forever because of a call to an external service
- send a Slack notification with all the important information about the workflow run

Transcript

1. Set up an Android CI using GitHub Actions Titouan Thibaud Senior Android Engineer @TitouanThibaud
2. Implementing our CI Build Test Deploy Notify
3. Core concepts: GitHub Actions Action Job Runner Step
4. GitHub Actions Marketplace
5. 1) Build: checkout - name: checkout uses: actions/checkout@v2
6. 2) Build: Setup Java 11 - uses: actions/setup-java@v1 with: java-version: 11
7. 3) Build/Test: Run unit tests and build our apks - name: Build debug and preprod apks and run tests uses: gradle/gradle-build-action@v2 with: arguments: | :app:testDevDebugUnitTest :app:assembleDevDebug :app:assemblePreprodRelease env: TERM: dumb
8. 4) Test: Getting useful Unit Tests reports - name: Upload build reports if: always() uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2 with: name: build-reports path: app/build/reports
10. 4) Test: Getting useful Unit Tests reports - improvement
11. 5) Notify: Send a Slack notification - name: Send Slack notification if: always() uses: 8398a7/action-slack@v3 with: status: ${{ job.status }} fields: repo,message,commit,author,eventName,ref, workflow,job,took,pullRequest env: SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL: ${{ secrets.OUR_SLACK_WEBHOOK_URL }}
12. Example of a Slack Notification
13. Implementing our CI Build Test Deploy Notify
14. 6) Deploy: Upload the apks on AppCenter - uses: actions/setup-node@v2 with: node-version: '14' - run: npm install -g appcenter-cli - name: publish dev apk to App Center run: appcenter distribute release --app DEV_APP_ID --file app/build/outputs/apk/dev/debug/app-dev-debug.apk --token ${{secrets.OUR_APPCENTER_TOKEN}} --group GROUP_NAME
15. Secrets on GitHub Actions
16. 6) Deploy: Upload the apks on AppCenter - uses: actions/setup-node@v2 with: node-version: '14' - run: npm install -g appcenter-cli - name: publish dev apk to App Center run: appcenter distribute release --app DEV_APP_ID --file app/build/outputs/apk/dev/debug/app-dev-debug.apk --token ${{secrets.OUR_APPCENTER_TOKEN}} --group GROUP_NAME
17. Decipher the credentials - name: Set up Cloud SDK uses: google-github-actions/setup-gcloud@v0.2.1 with: project_id: ${{ secrets.GCP_PROJECT_ID }} service_account_key: ${{ secrets.GCP_SA_KEY }} export_default_credentials: true
18. Decipher the credentials - name: 'Decrypt github-packages properties' run: gcloud kms decrypt --ciphertext-file=encrypted-file_path --plaintext-file=file_path --location=europe-west1 --keyring=ci-keyring --key=OUR_KEY
21. + easier to read, write and customize Results:
22. But…
23. Define a job and assign a runner jobs: build-for-commit: runs-on: ubuntu-latest
24. GitHub-hosted runners: • managed and maintained by GitHub. • clean instance for every job execution. Self-hosted runners: • run on machines you own • free to use with GitHub Actions • maintenance is your responsibility GitHub Action runners
26. Setup a custom runner jobs: build-for-commit: runs-on: ubuntu-latest
27. Setup a custom runner jobs: build-for-commit: runs-on: buildjet-8vcpu-ubuntu-2004
28. Results using BuildJet runners: Build time
29. Results using BuildJet runners: Build price
30. Speed up the upload-artifact step - name: zip build reports id: zipBuildReports if: always() working_directory: app/build/reports run: zip -r ../../../build-reports.zip ./* - name: Upload build reports if: always() && steps.zipBuildReports.outcome == 'success' uses: actions/upload-artifact@v2 with: name: build-reports path: build-reports.zip
31. Add a timeout on the job and “dangerous” steps - name: publish preprod apk to App Center run: appcenter … timeout-minutes: 1
32. Add a timeout on the job and “dangerous” steps build-for-PR: runs-on: buildjet-4vcpu-ubuntu-2004 timeout-minutes: 30
33. Using the optimal VM configuration for our needs
34. Using the optimal VM configuration for our needs 0.06
36. Set up an Android CI using GitHub Actions Titouan Thibaud Senior Android Engineer @TitouanThibaud Slack Android FR We’re hiring!