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Maven: The Complete Reference
14.8. The Custom Lifecycle from the Android Maven Plugin

14.8. The Custom Lifecycle from the Android Maven Plugin

The Android Maven Plugin customizes the lifecycle based on the packaging. If your project has a packaging of type apk the customized lifecycle will be used.

The customized lifecycle has the following additional executions in the default lifecycle.

generate-sources Phase
Use the Android Asset Packaging Tool (aapt) of the platform version specified in the pom to package the Android specific resources like AndroidManifest.xml, assets and resources. Additional parameters can be passed to aapt with the parameter aaptExtraArgs.
process-classes Phase
Run the dx tool of the platform version specified in the pom to convert all classes (libraries, resources and project code) into davlik executable format.
package Phase
Run the Android Package tool (apk) of the Android SDK to create and sign the Android package file (apk) for installation on the emulator or device.
pre-integration-test Phase
Deploy the currently built Android application package (apk) as well as any other dependencies with packaging type apk to the emulator/device.
integration-test Phase
Run the instrumentation test classes against the deployed application.