Secrets Gradle Plugin for Android

A Gradle plugin for providing your secrets securely to your Android project.

This Gradle plugin reads secrets from a properties file not checked into version control, such as local.properties, and expose those properties as variables in the Gradle-generated BuildConfig class and in the Android manifest file.

DISCLAIMER: This plugin is primarily for hiding your keys from version control. Since your key is part of the static binary, your API keys are still recoverable by decompiling an APK. So, securing your key using other measures like adding restrictions (if possible) are recommended.

Requirements

• Gradle-based Android project
• Android Gradle plugin 7.0.2

Installation

NOTE: Starting from v1.1.0, the plugin ID was changed to "com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin" and the plugin is now being distributed via Google Maven (gMaven). You can still download previous versions of the plugin from Gradle's plugin portal, but new versions will now only be distributed through gMaven.

1. In your project's root build.gradle file:

Groovy:

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath "com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin:secrets-gradle-plugin:2.0.1"
    }
}

Kotlin:

buildscript {
    dependencies {
        classpath("com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin:secrets-gradle-plugin:2.0.1")
    }
}

2. In your app-level build.gradle file:

Groovy:

plugins {
    id 'com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin'
}

Kotlin:

plugins {
    id("com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin")
}

This plugin also supports library module type (com.android.library). Just install the plugin in your library-level build.gradle file and keys will be visible inside that module as well.

Snapshot Releases

Snapshot releases, which are distributed via GitHub Packages, are also available for latest fixes. To use a snapshot release, add the following repository to your project-level build.gradle file:

Groovy:

buildscript {
    repositories {
        maven {
            url = uri("https://maven.pkg.github.com/google/secrets-gradle-plugin")
            credentials {
                username = project.findProperty("GITHUB_USER") ?: System.getenv("GITHUB_USER")
                password = project.findProperty("GITHUB_TOKEN") ?: System.getenv("GITHUB_TOKEN")
            }
        }
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath "com.google.android.libraries.mapsplatform.secrets-gradle-plugin:secrets-gradle-plugin:<version>-SNAPSHOT"
    }
}

Also, see Authenticating to GitHub Packages.

Example Usage

Example contents of local.properties under your root project:

apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY

After applying the plugin and building your project, the API key then becomes accessible in two ways.

1. As a BuildConfig value:

val apiKey = BuildConfig.apiKey

2. As a variable accessible in your AndroidManifest.xml file:

<meta-data android:value="${apiKey}" />

CI/CD Systems

For CI/CD systems, consider creating and checking in version control a default properties file with all the same keys required by your app but with safe default values. To do this, create a properties file and set the defaultPropertiesFileName value to that file name. For example:

secrets {
    defaultPropertiesFileName = 'local.defaults.properties'
}

Configuration Options

The plugin can optionally be configured:

secrets {
    // Change the properties file from the default "local.properties" in your root project
    // to another properties file in your root project.
    propertiesFileName 'secrets.properties'

    // A properties file containing default secret values. This file can be checked in version
    // control.
    defaultPropertiesFileName = 'secrets.defaults.properties'

    // Configure which keys should be ignored by the plugin by providing regular expressions.
    // "sdk.dir" is ignored by default.
    ignoreList.add("keyToIgnore") // Ignore the key "keyToIgnore"
    ignoreList.add("sdk.*")       // Ignore all keys matching the regexp "sdk.*"
}

Build-Variant Specific Properties

To set build-variant specific properties (build type or flavor), create a properties file at the root directory of the project with the same name as the variant. For example, to set keys specific for the release build type, create a new file called release.properties containing release-specific keys.

Contributing

Contributions to this library are always welcome and highly encouraged!

See CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md for more information on how to get started.

License

Apache 2.0. See LICENSE for more information.