Can Stoic be initiated and run in an Instrumentation Process?

[handstandsam]

With github.com/block/trailblaze we run on device inside an instrumentation process (test apk). Could this be used to modify state in the app under test?

[tcmulcahy]

Not today. The easiest path to enabling this would be for the app under test to export a ContentProvider, and I'm working on that.

If modifying the app under test is not an option, it's more complex because I suspect an instrumentation process doesn't have permission to attach a JVMTI agent directly - we'd need to run a separate script to attach the JVMTI agent, and then allow the instrumentation process to connect to that.

[handstandsam]

Nice. I've got a ContentProvider I'll be adding to github.com/block/trailblaze to help with test setup as well.

It works by reading a list of commands in /sdcard/Download/instrumentation-setup-$packageName.json. When the app launches, that content provider is run first and if it sees the file, will perform it's commands to write shared prefs, etc before the app actually boots/initializes (DI graph creation).

The goal is similar to allow pre-configuring of settings inside the app before it starts.

[tcmulcahy]

That seems like the right approach if you need this to happen at the beginning of the app process.

I'm working on a ContentProvider implementation for Stoic here:

stoic/kotlin/android/server/sdk/src/main/java/com/squareup/stoic/android/sdk/StoicContentProvider.kt

Line 57 in cedaecc

"open_standard" -> {

I'm using createReliableSocketPair to create a socket so I can establish bidirectional communication with the thing connecting. I've found it very convenient to have all communication across a socket. e.g. it allows me to send responses, and error messages.

If you just need to write to shared prefs, there are a couple of other strategies you could consider:

1. Use a ContentProvider in a :provider process - connect to that and write to shared prefs without even starting the main process.
2. Use run-as (though you probably can't use that directly from the instrumentation process)