Android Developer Tooling

Arcs supports a Websocket based channel that passes messages from the Arcs Storage Stack to a client. Follow the steps below to setup DevTols in your application.

1. Add the DevToolsService to your Application

To enable DevTools, you need to include and start the DevTools foreground service in your app. The first step is to add the INTERNET and FORGROUND_SERVICE android permissions to your AndroidManifet.xml file as shown below:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.FOREGROUND_SERVICE"/>

Next, you need to add //java/arcs/android/devtools and //java/arcs/android/devtools:aidl dependencies to your build file.

Finally, create an Intent and start the service as shown below.

val devToolsIntent = Intent(this, DevToolsService::class.java)
startForegroundService(devToolsIntent)

Once startForegroundService is called, the DevToolsService will connect to the Arcs StorageService and begin sending messages to your client.

For an example of DevToolsService you can checkout the E2E TestApp.

2. Port Forwarding and Server Setup

Once you have installed your app with DevTools service, you need to setup port forwarding by running:

adb forward tcp:12345 tcp:33317

To view messages coming across, start running a local server by running:

tools/sigh devServer

3. View Messages

You can view the messages sent from the DevToolsService by opening http://localhost:8786/devtoolsNG/basic/index.html