According to https://developer.android.com/guide/playcore/asset-delivery/test it should be possible to locally install and test intall-time asset packs. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work at all. I can generate an app bundle with the asset pack (it does contain the asset folder with proper contents). I can also generate apks, as described on that page, which probably also contain the assets. My asset pack is simply called "assets" and I can see two directories in the apks file: asset-slices and splits. asset-slices contains a single assets-master.apk file with the asset pack. splits contains a lot of small apk files with the application itself.
After running java -jar bundletool.jar install-apks --apks=output.apks I can see the contents of the splits folder being pushed to the emulator, but the asset pack itself is not installed. Can I somehow test PAD locally? As a related question - what is a preferable flow for testing such apps locally, when assets frequently change?
To answer my own question - the asset pack was installed, but AssetPackManager was simply unable to resolve any asset path, for unknown reason.