Use BrowserStack’s Gradle plugin to run Espresso tests

Use BrowserStack’s Gradle plugin to run Espresso tests on BrowserStack App Automate.

BrowserStack provides a Gradle plugin GitHub repository to build, upload, and start Espresso tests on App Automate. You can use this plugin for your development workflow and for easy integration with BrowserStack on a CI/CD server.

Getting started

Step 1: Update build.gradle

In order to configure the plugin, add the following to your app-level build.gradle file:

a. Add plugin dependencies

buildscript {
  repositories {
    ...
    maven {
      url "https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/"
    }
  }
  dependencies {
    classpath "gradle.plugin.com.browserstack.gradle:browserstack-gradle-plugin:3.0.2"
  }
}
...
apply plugin: "com.browserstack.gradle"
...

allprojects {
  repositories {
    google()
    jcenter()
    maven ("https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/")
  }
}




dependencies {
  implementation("gradle.plugin.com.browserstack.gradle:browserstack-gradle-plugin:3.0.2")
}

b. Add browserStackConfig parameters

browserStackConfig {
    username = "YOUR_USERNAME"
    accessKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"
    configFilePath = "path/to/your/json/configFile"
}

browserStackConfig { this:BrowserStackConfigExtension
    username = "YOUR_USERNAME"
    accessKey = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"
    configFilePath = "path/to/your/json/configFile"
}

Step 2: Create an Espresso configuration file

Create a JSON configuration file that contains all parameters to configure your Espresso test execution on BrowserStack. These parameters include setting the device(s), debugging options and any other App Automate feature you want to use. An example configuration file is shown below:

Step 3: Run the Gradle tasks

To build, upload and execute your Espresso tests, run the command below:

gradle clean executeDebugTestsOnBrowserstack

This executes the following:

1. Build the app (Debug APK) and Espresso test suite (Test APK), as dependencies are declared on assembleDebug and assembleDebugAndroidTest tasks.
2. Find the latest app APK and test APK in the app directory recursively.
3. Upload both the APK files to BrowserStack servers.
4. Execute Espresso test using the uploaded apps and test suites on the devices specified in the Espresso configuration file.

On successful task execution, the test results are available on the command-line interface and on the App Automate dashboard.

Sample command-line output:

Most recent DebugApp apk: /Users/{username}/AndroidStudioProjects/espresso-browserstack/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
Most recent TestApp apk: /Users/{username}/AndroidStudioProjects/espresso-browserstack/app/build/outputs/apk/androidTest/debug/app-debug-androidTest.apk

App upload Response Code : 200
{"app_url":"bs://83c5dab1adac36004b5f6fc72d9d3136c17e3b5c"}

TestSuite upload Response Code : 200
{"test_url":"bs://83c5dab1adac36004b5f6fc72d9d3136c17e3b5c"}

Response Code : 200
{"message":"Success","build_id":"5a2bac8e53d4786bc2895316badc92299ee22fb9"}
View build status at https://app-automate.browserstack.com/builds/5a2bac8e53d4786bc2895316badc92299ee22fb9

For running tests on a project with build variants, such as product flavors, you can run the following command to build, upload, and run your Espresso tests:

gradle clean execute${buildVariantName}DebugTestsOnBrowserstack

Replace ${buildVariantName} with your build variant name, such as a product flavor. For example, if your productFlavor name is phone and you want to test a debug build type of this variant, the command is:

gradle clean executePhoneDebugTestsOnBrowserstack