How to Set Up Android CI/CD with GitHub Actions — Firebase Distribution & Play Store

Setting up CI/CD for Android apps on GitHub Actions is straightforward once you know the gotchas. This guide covers everything: building signed APKs/AABs, caching Gradle, deploying to Firebase Distribution for testers, and publishing to Play Store. Prerequisites An Android project with Gradle (Groovy or Kotlin DSL) A GitHub repository For Firebase: a Firebase project with your app added For Play Store: a Google Play Console account with your app set up Step 1: Make Gradlew Executable This trips up almost everyone on their first CI run. Your gradlew file might not be executable in Git: git update-index --chmod = +x gradlew git commit -m "Make gradlew executable" Or add this step to your workflow (we'll include it below). Step 2: Create a Signing Keystore If you don't have one yet: keytool -genkeypair -v \ -keystore release.jks \ -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 \ -validity 10000 \ -alias release \ -storepass YOUR_STORE_PASSWORD \ -keypass YOUR_KEY_PASSWORD \ -dname "CN=Your Name, O=Your Org" N