gitlab-ci-android: Android build and test image for gitlab

Contains the Android SDK, NDK and common packages necessary for building Android Apps in Gitlab CI (for example). Make sure caching is enabled for the CI environment to speed up builds.

Also produces the above plus nodejs for Vue/Nuxt-based client front ends.

Example yml which has dependency caching enabled:

image: <your docker username>/gitlab-ci-android

stages:
- release

variables:
  GRADLE_OPTS: "-Dorg.gradle.daemon=false"

before_script:
- export GRADLE_USER_HOME=$(pwd)/.gradle
- chmod +x ./gradlew

cache:
  key: ${CI_PROJECT_ID}
  paths:
  - .gradle/

build:
    stage: release
    script:
        - ./gradlew clean assembleRelease
    artifacts:
        expire_in: 2 weeks
        paths:
            - app/build/outputs/apk/*.apk
    only:
        - develop

Modifications

Android packages are located in pkgs.txt. Discover what packages to add/update with:

~/Android/Sdk/cmdline-tools/latest/bin/sdkmanager --list_installed ./sdkmanager --list > ~/pkglst.txt emacs ~/pkglst.txt

Update NDK

Go here to find the ndkVersion to file name mapping: [https://developer.android.com/ndk/downloads]

JDK Settings

The Docker image supports JDK 21.

To use the correct version within your builds, it is recommended to define JAVA_HOME accordingly.

before_script: 
  - export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-21-openjdk-amd64

License

Gitlab CI Android
Copyright (c) 2026 Bitcoin Unlimited
Copyright (c) 2023 inovex GmbH (https://www.inovex.de)

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.