Android Testing with DeviceRunners CLI

This guide covers testing Android applications using the DeviceRunners CLI tool.

Prerequisites

• A running Android emulator or connected device (see Managing Android Emulators)
• .NET 9.0+ SDK with MAUI workloads installed

Running Tests

The DeviceRunners CLI tool provides a comprehensive test workflow that handles installation, execution, and cleanup automatically.

1. Build the app package for testing:

   dotnet publish <path/to/app.csproj> -r <runtime-identifier> -f net9.0-android -c Release
   

   Common runtime identifiers: android-arm64 (physical devices, Apple Silicon emulators), android-x64 (Intel emulators)

2. Run the tests:

   device-runners android test --app <path/to/app.apk> --results-directory <path/to/output>
   

3. View test results:

   <path/to/output>/TestResults.xml
   <path/to/output>/logcat.txt
   

Complete Example

To build and test the app at the path sample/test/DeviceTestingKitApp.DeviceTests/DeviceTestingKitApp.DeviceTests.csproj:

# Build the test app
dotnet publish sample/test/DeviceTestingKitApp.DeviceTests/DeviceTestingKitApp.DeviceTests.csproj \
  -f net9.0-android \
  -r android-arm64 \
  -c Release

# Run tests
device-runners android test \
  --app sample/test/DeviceTestingKitApp.DeviceTests/bin/Release/net9.0-android/android-arm64/publish/com.companyname.devicetestingkitapp.devicetests-Signed.apk \
  --results-directory artifacts/test-results

# Test result files will be:
# - artifacts/test-results/TestResults.xml
# - artifacts/test-results/logcat.txt

See Also

• Using DeviceRunners CLI - CLI overview and all platform commands
• Managing Android Emulators - Setting up emulators
• CLI Test Workflow - Detailed workflow internals