Tag Archives: Android Gradle Plugin

Prepare your Android Project for Android Gradle plugin 8.0 API changes

Posted by Wojtek Kaliciński, Boris Farber, Android Developer Relations Engineers, and Xavier Ducrohet, Android Studio Tech Lead

To improve build speed and provide stable APIs, the Transform APIs will be removed in Android Gradle plugin (AGP) version 8.0. Most use cases have replacement APIs which are available starting from AGP version 7.2. Read on for more details.

The Android developer community's top request has been to improve build speed while making sure Android Gradle plugin (AGP) has a solid, stable, and well supported API.

To improve build speed starting from AGP 7.2, we have stabilized the Artifacts API and updated the Instrumentation API. For common use cases, these APIs replace the Transform APIs, which cause longer build times and are gone in AGP 8.0.

This article walks you through transitioning off the Transform APIs, whether you're working on a Gradle plugin or an application.

Guidance for Gradle plugins

To improve build times, we split Transform's functionality into the following APIs that are optimized for common use cases:

  • The Instrumentation API lets you transform and analyze compiled app classes using ASM callbacks. For example use this API to add custom traces to methods or classes for additional or custom logging.
  • The Artifacts API gives access to files or directories, whether temporary or final, that are produced by AGP during the build. Use this API to:
    • Add additional generated classes to the app, such as glue code for dependency injection.
    • Implement transformations based on whole program analysis, when all classes can be transformed together in a single task. This is only available starting from AGP 7.4.0-alpha06. The build.gradle.kts file in the “modifyProjectClasses'' Gradle recipe shows how to do it.

For examples of how to use the replacement APIs see the Transform API update note, and our Gradle recipes.

Guidance for apps

Make sure that you update your plugins to be AGP 8.0 compliant before updating your app to AGP 8.0. If the relevant plugins are not compliant, please create a bug that includes a link to this post and send it to the plugin authors.

Several commonly used plugins have already migrated to use these new APIs, including the Hilt Gradle plugin.

Share your feedback

If your use case is not covered by any of the new APIs, please file a bug.

We encourage you to get started with making your plugins compatible with the new AGP APIs. Getting started now means that you have enough time to familiarize yourself with the APIs, share your feedback and then upgrade your dependencies and plugins.

Preparing your Gradle build for package visibility in Android 11


Posted by David Winer, Product Manager

illustration of mobile device with lock
One of the central themes for Android 11 has been protecting user privacy. On Android 10 and earlier, you could query the full set of installed apps using methods like queryIntentActivities(). Often, however, this approach provides much more access than most apps need to implement their functionality. To better protect user privacy, we updated how apps view and interact with other installed apps on Android 11.
To provide better accountability for access to installed apps, apps targeting Android 11 (API level 30) will see a filtered list of installed apps by default. The new <queries> element in your app or library’s Android manifest allows you to describe which other apps you might need to interact with. For more information about this change, check out our Medium post on package visibility in Android 11.

Android Studio and Gradle support

If you are using Android Gradle plugin 4.1+, your tools should work with the new <queries> declaration. However, older versions of the Android Gradle plugin are not aware of this new element. If you add the <queries> element or if you start relying on a library or SDK that supports targeting Android 11, you may encounter manifest merging errors. For example, when building your app you may see the following error in the Build Output Window:
Android resource linking failed /Users/sample/AndroidStudioProjects/MyApp/app/build/intermediates/merged_manifests/debug/AndroidManifest.xml:18: error: unexpected element <queries> found in <manifest>
Alternatively, you may see an error in the Build Output Window that directs you to the Manifest merger logs:
Manifest merger failed with multiple errors, see logs
Upon expanding the Merged Manifest view you would then see an additional error:
Error: Missing 'package' key attribute on element package

Android Gradle plugin fixes

The best solution to deal with these errors is to upgrade to Android Gradle plugin 4.1 Beta.
We know that not everyone is ready to upgrade to the latest version, though, and you may be relying on old versions of Gradle or libraries that aren’t compatible with 4.1.
So, today we issued a set of dot releases for the Android Gradle plugin that are compatible with <queries>:
For example, if you are currently using Android Gradle plugin version 4.0.0, you can upgrade the version in your project-level build.gradle file: 
 buildscript {

    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
    }

    dependencies {
        // classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.0'
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.1'
    }
}

For more information on this new feature in Android 11, check out the package visibility documentation and the Android Gradle plugin release notes.

Preparing your Gradle build for package visibility in Android 11


Posted by David Winer, Product Manager

illustration of mobile device with lock
One of the central themes for Android 11 has been protecting user privacy. On Android 10 and earlier, you could query the full set of installed apps using methods like queryIntentActivities(). Often, however, this approach provides much more access than most apps need to implement their functionality. To better protect user privacy, we updated how apps view and interact with other installed apps on Android 11.
To provide better accountability for access to installed apps, apps targeting Android 11 (API level 30) will see a filtered list of installed apps by default. The new <queries> element in your app or library’s Android manifest allows you to describe which other apps you might need to interact with. For more information about this change, check out our Medium post on package visibility in Android 11.

Android Studio and Gradle support

If you are using Android Gradle plugin 4.1+, your tools should work with the new <queries> declaration. However, older versions of the Android Gradle plugin are not aware of this new element. If you add the <queries> element or if you start relying on a library or SDK that supports targeting Android 11, you may encounter manifest merging errors. For example, when building your app you may see the following error in the Build Output Window:
Android resource linking failed /Users/sample/AndroidStudioProjects/MyApp/app/build/intermediates/merged_manifests/debug/AndroidManifest.xml:18: error: unexpected element <queries> found in <manifest>
Alternatively, you may see an error in the Build Output Window that directs you to the Manifest merger logs:
Manifest merger failed with multiple errors, see logs
Upon expanding the Merged Manifest view you would then see an additional error:
Error: Missing 'package' key attribute on element package

Android Gradle plugin fixes

The best solution to deal with these errors is to upgrade to Android Gradle plugin 4.1 Beta.
We know that not everyone is ready to upgrade to the latest version, though, and you may be relying on old versions of Gradle or libraries that aren’t compatible with 4.1.
So, today we issued a set of dot releases for the Android Gradle plugin that are compatible with <queries>:
For example, if you are currently using Android Gradle plugin version 4.0.0, you can upgrade the version in your project-level build.gradle file: 
 buildscript {

    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
    }

    dependencies {
        // classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.0'
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.1'
    }
}

For more information on this new feature in Android 11, check out the package visibility documentation and the Android Gradle plugin release notes.

Preparing your Gradle build for package visibility in Android 11


Posted by David Winer, Product Manager

illustration of mobile device with lock
One of the central themes for Android 11 has been protecting user privacy. On Android 10 and earlier, you could query the full set of installed apps using methods like queryIntentActivities(). Often, however, this approach provides much more access than most apps need to implement their functionality. To better protect user privacy, we updated how apps view and interact with other installed apps on Android 11.
To provide better accountability for access to installed apps, apps targeting Android 11 (API level 30) will see a filtered list of installed apps by default. The new <queries> element in your app or library’s Android manifest allows you to describe which other apps you might need to interact with. For more information about this change, check out our Medium post on package visibility in Android 11.

Android Studio and Gradle support

If you are using Android Gradle plugin 4.1+, your tools should work with the new <queries> declaration. However, older versions of the Android Gradle plugin are not aware of this new element. If you add the <queries> element or if you start relying on a library or SDK that supports targeting Android 11, you may encounter manifest merging errors. For example, when building your app you may see the following error in the Build Output Window:
Android resource linking failed /Users/sample/AndroidStudioProjects/MyApp/app/build/intermediates/merged_manifests/debug/AndroidManifest.xml:18: error: unexpected element <queries> found in <manifest>
Alternatively, you may see an error in the Build Output Window that directs you to the Manifest merger logs:
Manifest merger failed with multiple errors, see logs
Upon expanding the Merged Manifest view you would then see an additional error:
Error: Missing 'package' key attribute on element package

Android Gradle plugin fixes

The best solution to deal with these errors is to upgrade to Android Gradle plugin 4.1 Beta.
We know that not everyone is ready to upgrade to the latest version, though, and you may be relying on old versions of Gradle or libraries that aren’t compatible with 4.1.
So, today we issued a set of dot releases for the Android Gradle plugin that are compatible with <queries>:
For example, if you are currently using Android Gradle plugin version 4.0.0, you can upgrade the version in your project-level build.gradle file: 
 buildscript {

    repositories {
        google()
        jcenter()
    }

    dependencies {
        // classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.0'
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:4.0.1'
    }
}

For more information on this new feature in Android 11, check out the package visibility documentation and the Android Gradle plugin release notes.