Is it possible to create an apk in Ionic 4 - (React) via CLI only?

Question

I want to generate an apk for an Ionic-React app, only using the command-line.

I am able to use Ionic Capacitor to make an apk via Android-Studio, but I want to purely use the CLI to generate the same apk. Is this possible to do? Thanks.

Answer 1

I have since solved this issue and am now able to build an Ionic React app apk on Azure dev-ops without having to interact with Android studio at all. Here is the YAML -

Firstly - Building the Ionic project

trigger:
- master

variables:
  scheme: ''
  sdk: 'iphoneos'
  configuration: 'Release'
pool:
  vmImage: 'macos-latest'

steps:
- task: UseNode@1
  inputs:
    checkLatest: true
- task: Npm@1
  inputs:
    command: 'install'
- script: npm run citest
- task: Npm@1
  inputs:
    command: 'custom'
    customCommand: 'install -g ionic'
- task: CmdLine@2
  inputs:
    script: 'ionic build --prod'
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  inputs:
    PathtoPublish: 'build'
    ArtifactName: 'drop'
    publishLocation: 'Container'

Secondly - Building .apk

- task: CmdLine@2
  inputs:
    script: 'ionic capacitor add android'
- task: PythonScript@0
  inputs:
    scriptSource: 'filePath'
    scriptPath: 'changeGradle.py'
    arguments: '--version=$(Build.BuildId)'

- task: CopyFiles@2
  inputs:
    SourceFolder: 'resources/androidResources/res'
    Contents: '**'
    TargetFolder: 'android/app/src/main/res'
    OverWrite: true
- task: Gradle@2
  inputs:
    workingDirectory: 'android'
    gradleWrapperFile: 'android/gradlew'
    gradleOptions: '-Xmx3072m'
    javaHomeOption: 'JDKVersion'
    jdkVersionOption: '1.8'
    jdkArchitectureOption: 'x64'
    publishJUnitResults: true
    testResultsFiles: '**/TEST-*.xml'
    tasks: 'build'
- task: AndroidSigning@3
  inputs:
    apkFiles: 'android/app/build/outputs/apk/release/*.apk'
    apksignerKeystoreFile: XXX.jks
    apksignerKeystorePassword: 'XXX'
    apksignerKeystoreAlias: 'XXX'
    apksignerKeyPassword: 'XXX'
    zipalign: true
- task: CopyFiles@2
  inputs:
    Contents: '**/*'
    TargetFolder: '$(build.artifactStagingDirectory)'
- task: PublishPipelineArtifact@1
  inputs:
    targetPath: '$(Build.artifactStagingDirectory)'
    publishLocation: 'pipeline'

Publishing the .apk to Google Play internal track is handled in the Azure release pipeline (not build). The PythonScript command is a custom script I wrote to change the Gradlew build no. as no other solutions seemed to work for me.

I hope this helps someone as this was a nightmare to figure out on my own!