[](https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/labt)
[](https://crates.io/crates/labt)
[](https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/labt/-/pipelines)
# Lightweight Android Build tool (LABt)
**LABt** is a command line interface tool written in Rust for building your android projects
on the terminal. It provides dependency management tools to easily add and
resolve your project dependencies. It aims to work fully offline and only
requiring network during resolution when the dependencies were not cached
locally.
At its core, labt provides a plugin system to build applications. The plugins
system provides lua scripting for easy to implement and lightweight plugins.
_NB: This project is a working progress and currently very unstable_
## Installation
Install using cargo
```bash
cargo install labt
```
build from source
```bash
git clone https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/labt
cd labt
cargo build --release
# or
# cargo build --release --features vendored-lua
```
### Os support
Currently the base support is on *Linux* based OS
future cross platform support is planned
## Usage
Initialize a new a new android project
```bash
labt init <initializer url>
labt init https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/plugins/labt-java@latest
```
This creates a new project.
Add a dependency to your project
```bash
labt add androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.1.0
```
the add subcommand automatically downloads and caches the provided dependency.
You can also fetch the dependencies manually by running.
```bash
labt resolve
```
Labt on its own just manages your projects, its dependencies and sdkmodules. To do a build of your app,
you will need a plugin. Choose a plugin of your choice from any git compatible repository
and `use` it for your build proccess. For example, use [labt-java](https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/plugins/labt-java)
to build a java application.
```
labt plugin https://gitlab.com/lab-tool/plugins/labt-java@v0.1.0
```
Now you can run `labt build` and the plugin will build the application for you. If you have special
requirements to build your application check the [LABt Lua API documentation](doc/LuaAPI.md) on how to
create a custom plugin.
for more information you could try `labt help`
```bash
Usage: labt [COMMAND]
Commands:
add Adds a new project dependency
init Initializes a new project
resolve Fetches the project dependencies
build Builds the project
plugin Manage plugins
sdk Sdk manager
help Print this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
Options:
-h, --help Print help
-V, --version Print version
```
Here's a more concise version:
## SDK Manager
LABt's SDK Manager lets you manage Android SDK packages via a
terminal interface. Sdk packages provide development tools to plugins e.g. aapt, r8, d8 and adb from google Android SDK packages.
- **Add repository**: Use `labt sdk add google` for default android google repo or any third party repository by `labt sdk add <name> <url>`.
- **Interactive Management**: Use `labt sdk list <repo-name>` to view
and toggle package actions (install, uninstall, upgrade/downgrade)
in a TUI.
- **Installing**: `labt sdk install <repo-name> --path <id> --version <version>` to install a package non interactively.
- **Lua API Integration**: Plugins can access SDK packages directly through
LABt's Lua API. [More details here](doc/LuaAPI.md).
```lua
local build = require("sdk:build")
local ok, stdout, stderr = build.get_aapt2("version")
local version
if ok then
version = stderr -- Note: `aapt2` outputs to `stderr`
else
error(stderr)
end
```
## Plugin system
Labt on its own cant really do much. It provides tools to manage projects and their
dependencies. To extend the capability of labt, it provides a powerful Lua scripting
plugin system. This allows custom plugins to do the heavy lifting of building applications.
For more information on plugin system check the [LABt Lua API documentation](doc/LuaAPI.md).
## TODO
- [x] Add a FFI capability for plugins
- [x] Support for windows file system
- [x] Add a configurable template system
- [x] Stabilize the plugin api and interpret versions of plugins
- [x] Shorten the plugin use command
- [x] Sdkmanager support multiple repositories