Gradle Maven plugin “install” task does not work with Android library project

Question

I want to install android library project to local maven repository. Here is build.gradle:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
          


        

Answer 1

UPDATE 2014-11-26

The answer below made sense at the time of writing, when Android Build Tools were at version 0.5.5. It is most likely outdated now and probably does not work anymore.

I have personally switched my projects to use android-maven-plugin as described in the answer above, the plugin works fine with the recent versions of Android Build Tools too.

THE ORIGINAL ANSWER FROM FEBRUARY 2014

Publishing as AAR

If you don't mind using an older version of com.android.tools.build:gradle (i.e. 0.5.4), you can use the approach described in this blogpost. Not that according to the discussion in adt-dev mailing-list, this does not work in 0.5.5.

Add the following lines to your build.gradle:

apply plugin: 'maven-publish'

// load bundleRelease task
// this will not load the task in 0.5.5
android.libraryVariants

publishing {
    publications {
        maven(MavenPublication) {
            artifact bundleRelease
        }
    }
}

To publish to your local maven repo, call this command:

gradle publishToMavenLocal

Publishing as JAR

If your Android Library does not have custom resources and can be published as JAR, then you can use the following build.gradle that works even with 0.5.5.

// build JAR file
task androidReleaseJar(type: Jar, dependsOn: assembleRelease) {
    from "$buildDir/classes/release/"
}

apply plugin: 'maven-publish'

publishing {
    publications {
        maven(MavenPublication) {
            artifact androidReleaseJar
        }
    }
}

To publish to your local maven repo, call this command:

gradle publishToMavenLocal