Android Gradle Plugin 3.2.0 (September 2018)

This version of the Android plugin requires the following:

3.2.1 (October 2018)

With this update, you no longer need to specify a version for the SDK Build Tools. The Android Gradle plugin now uses version 28.0.3 by default.

New features

  • Support for building Android App Bundles: The app bundle is a new upload format that includes all your app’s compiled code and resources while deferring APK generation and signing to the Google Play Store. You no longer have to build, sign, and manage multiple APKs, and users get smaller downloads that are optimized for their device. To learn more, read About Android App Bundles.

  • Support for improved incremental build speeds when using annotation processors: The AnnotationProcessorOptions DSL now extends CommandLineArgumentProvider, which enables either you or the annotation processor author to annotate arguments for the processor using incremental build property type annotations. Using these annotations improves the correctness and performance of incremental and cached clean builds. To learn more, read Pass arguments to annotation processors.

  • Migration tool for AndroidX: When using Android Gradle plugin 3.2.0 with Android 3.2 and higher, you can migrate your project’s local and Maven dependencies to use the new AndroidX libraries by selecting Refactor > Migrate to AndroidX from the menu bar. Using this migration tool also sets the following flags to true in your gradle.properties file:

    • android.useAndroidX: When set to true, the Android plugin uses the appropriate AndroidX library instead of a Support Library. When this flag is not specified, the plugin sets it to false by default.

    • android.enableJetifier: When set to true, the Android plugin automatically migrates existing third-party libraries to use AndroidX by rewriting their binaries. When this flag is not specified, the plugin sets it to false by default. You can set this flag to true only while android.useAndroidX is also set to true, otherwise you get a build error.

      To learn more, read the AndroidX overview.

  • New code shrinker, R8: R8 is a new tool for code shrinking and obfuscation that replaces ProGuard. You can start using the preview version of R8 by including the following in your project’s gradle.properties file:

            android.enableR8 = true
        
            android.enableR8 = true

Behavior changes

  • Desugaring with D8 is now enabled by default.

  • AAPT2 is now on Google's Maven repo. To use AAPT2, make sure that you have the google() dependency in your build.gradle file, as shown below:

              buildscript {
                repositories {
                    google() // here
                    jcenter()
                }
                dependencies {
                    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.2.0'
                }
            }
            allprojects {
                repositories {
                    google() // and here
                    jcenter()
            }
          
              buildscript {
                repositories {
                    google() // here
                    jcenter()
                }
                dependencies {
                    classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:3.2.0'
                }
            }
            allprojects {
                repositories {
                    google() // and here
                    jcenter()
            }

  • Native multidex is now enabled by default. Previous versions of Android Studio enabled native multidex when deploying the debug version of an app to a device running Android API level 21 or higher. Now, whether you’re deploying to a device or building an APK for release, the Android Gradle plugin enables native multidex for all modules that set minSdkVersion=21 or higher.

  • The plugin now enforces a minimum version of the protobuf plugin (0.8.6), Kotlin plugin (1.2.50), and Crashlytics plugin (1.25.4).

  • The feature module plugin,com.android.feature, now enforces the use of only letters, digits, and underscores when specifying a module name. For example, if your feature module name includes dashes, you get a build error. This behavior matches that of the dynamic feature plugin.

Bug fixes