Sentinel is a simple one screen UI that provides standardised entry point for tools used in
development and QA alongside device, application and permissions data.
It's designed to be easily configured and expanded depending on needs and requirements of developers
and QA testers.
The project is organized in the following modules:
sentinel
- contains a single screen UI that provides visual information about device, application, permissions and toolssentinel-no-op
- contains stubs for easy release implementation of UI package and any Tools includedtool-chucker
- contains a class wrapper for Chuckertool-collar
- contains a class wrapper for Collartool-dbinspector
- contains a class wrapper for DbInspectortool-leakcanary
- contains a class wrapper for LeakCanarytool-appgallery
- contains a class wrapper for Huawei AppGallerytool-googleplay
- contains a class wrapper for Google Playtool-thimble
- contains a class wrapper for Thimbletool-timber
- contains a class wrapper for Timbersample
- a sample app for testing and developing
To include Sentinel in your project, you have to add buildscript dependencies in your project
level build.gradle
or build.gradle.kts
:
Groovy
buildscript {
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
}
KotlinDSL
buildscript {
repositories {
mavenCentral()
}
}
Then add the following dependencies in your app build.gradle
or build.gradle.kts
:
Groovy
def sentinelVersion = "1.3.3"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:sentinel:$sentinelVersion"
releaseImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:sentinel-noop:$sentinelVersion"
KotlinDSL
val sentinelVersion = "1.3.3"
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:sentinel:$sentinelVersion")
releaseImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:sentinel-no-op:$sentinelVersion")
Basic tools are provided inside the main package but depending on requirements you might want to add specific tools:
Groovy
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-chucker:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-collar:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-dbinspector:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-leakcanary:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-appgallery:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-googleplay:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-thimble:$sentinelVersion"
debugImplementation "com.infinum.sentinel:tool-timber:$sentinelVersion"
KotlinDSL
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-chucker:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-collar:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-dbinspector:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-leakcanary:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-appgallery:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-googleplay:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-thimble:$sentinelVersion")
debugImplementation("com.infinum.sentinel:tool-timber:$sentinelVersion")
Now you can sync your project.
Create or inject an instance of Sentinel in your Application class and start watching for triggers:
Sentinel.watch(
setOf(
ChuckerTool(),
CollarTool(),
DbInspectorTool(),
LeakCanaryTool(),
AppGalleryTool(appId = "123456789"),
GooglePlayTool(),
ThimbleTool(),
TimberTool(allowedTags = listOf("EXAMPLE")),
CertificateTool(userCertificates = listOf())
)
)
A set of tools should be provided as a watch parameter. This set of tools can be empty.
Sentinel provides several different levels of tools for a developer to implement.
AppInfoTool
- opens Android OS Settings page of the application in which Sentinel was implementedCrashMonitorTool
- monitors exceptions and ANR crashes of the application in which Sentinel was implementedBundleMonitorTool
- monitors Bundle objects passed around the application mostly for size avoiding TransactionTooLarge exceptionsPreference Editor
- by tapping any preference Sentinel opens a screen where you can edit current valueCertificateTool
- opens a list of system and user provided X.509 certificates with details
Depending of what you include as module dependencies, very specific tools are provided.
ChuckerTool
- a wrapper class that opens ChuckerCollarTool
- a wrapper class that opens CollarDbInspectorTool
- a wrapper class that opens DbInspectorLeakCanaryTool
- a wrapper class that opens LeakCanaryThimbleTool
- a wrapper class that opens ThimbleTimberTool
- a wrapper class that opens Timber . Takes in an optional list of allowed tags for filtering logged messages per tag.AppGalleryTool
- a wrapper class that opens Huawei AppGallery of a published application or a web page of the application if Huawei AppGallery is not foundGooglePlayTool
- a wrapper class that opens Google Play of a published application or a web page of the application if Google Play is not found
If you want to implement a different tool other than already packaged with a predefined type and name, several are available.
NetworkTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Network for any network interceptorsMemoryTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Memory for any memory management toolsAnalyticsTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Analytics for any analytics collectorsDatabaseTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Database for any database viewersReportTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Report for any crash reporting toolsBluetoothTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Bluetooth for any Bluetooth loggersDistributionTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Distribution for any release distribution channelsDesignTool
- a wrapper interface with a name Design for any design utilities
An interface is provided named Sentinel.Tool that requires implementation of a String resource for a name and a View.OnClickListener. An optional icon Drawable resource can be supplied. Implementing this interface enables any class to be provided as a tool in Sentinel.
interface Tool {
@DrawableRes
fun icon(): Int? = null
@StringRes
fun name(): Int
fun listener(): View.OnClickListener
}
Sentinel observes several different trigger events, determining when to show up.
Manual trigger cannot be turned off but rest are configurable through Sentinel
settings except Foreground trigger when running on emulators. Trigger states will be persisted
between sessions.
Upon first run, all triggers are enabled.
Only way to override default trigger behaviour is to explicitly set them in you application manifest.
If declared, these will override any changes that user does on each application launch.
Accepted values are 0 and 1 to disable or enable a trigger.
Anything else will result in the same way like the metadata key isn't declared at all.
<application
android:name=".SampleApplication"
android:icon="@mipmap/ic_launcher"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:roundIcon="@mipmap/ic_launcher_round"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
...
<meta-data
android:name="com.infinum.sentinel.trigger.shake"
android:value="1" />
<meta-data
android:name="com.infinum.sentinel.trigger.proximity"
android:value="0" />
<meta-data
android:name="com.infinum.sentinel.trigger.foreground"
android:value="0" />
<meta-data
android:name="com.infinum.sentinel.trigger.usb_connected"
android:value="0" />
<meta-data
android:name="com.infinum.sentinel.trigger.airplane_mode_on"
android:value="0" />
...
</application>
Manual
- used for manually triggering UI with show()Shake
- default trigger to show UI, shake device to invokeProximity
- shows UI every time sensor detects near stateForeground
- shows UI every time application goes into foregroundUSB connected
- shows UI every time an USB cable is plugged inAirplane mode on
- shows UI every time Airplane mode is turned on
Data gathered and presented by Sentinel can be shared to any text compliant recipient applications. Sentinel provides a few simple text formatters for easy integrations into other systems. Plain formatter is selected by default, but selecting any other is persisted between sessions.
Plain
Markdown
JSON
XML
HTML
Sentinel has a built in default uncaught exception handler and ANR observer. If switched on in
settings, it will notify both in a form of a notification. Note that from Android 13 you need to give permission
to the app to show notifications.
Once tapped on this notification, a screen with details is shown. A complete list of crashes is
persisted between sessions and available on demand.
Methods to react on these crashes in a graceful way are provided in Sentinel.
Sentinel.setExceptionHandler { _, exception ->
println("Exception happened: ${exception.message}")
exitProcess(exception.hashCode())
}
Sentinel.setAnrListener { exception ->
println("ANR happened: ${exception.message}")
exitProcess(exception.hashCode())
}
Sentinel monitors Bundle objects passed around the application mostly for size limit of 500kB,
thus avoiding TransactionTooLarge exceptions.
In settings there are options to notify inside a running session, toggle specific variants or set
the limit of Bundle size.
This monitor feature runs automatically for every Activity but if you wish to disable monitoring
for a specific screen, you can do so in the AndroidManifest.xml by adding a meta-data node.
<activity
android:name="com.example.ui.main.MainActivity"
android:exported="false">
<meta-data
android:name="@string/sentinel_infinum_monitored"
android:value="false" />
</activity>
This plugin has been written in Kotlin but works both inside Kotlin and Java projects. Minimum required API level to use Sentinel is 21 known as Android 5.0, Lollipop. Sentinel is built with and for AndroidX projects.
Feedback and code contributions are very much welcome. Just make a pull request with a short
description of your changes. By making contributions to this project you give permission for your
code to be used under the same license. For easier developing a sample
application with
proper implementations is provided. If you wish to add a new specific dependency wrapper tool,
create a new module and set it up like the ones already provided. Then create a pull request.
Copyright 2020 Infinum
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
Maintained and sponsored by Infinum.