Include Stetho only in the debug build variant

Using java reflection may be a perferct idea:

private void initStetho() {
            if (BuildConfig.DEBUG) {
                try {
                   Class<?> stethoClazz = Class.forName("com.facebook.stetho.Stetho");
                    Method method = stethoClazz.getMethod("initializeWithDefaults",Context.class);
                    method.invoke(null, this);
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }

then we can debug compile stetho:

debugCompile 'com.facebook.stetho:stetho:1.5.0'

You have a few options.

Option 1: Include Stetho for all builds (using compile instead of debugCompile) and only initialize it in your Application class for debug builds.

This is pretty easy to do. In your Application class, check BuildConfig.DEBUG like so:

if (BuildConfig.DEBUG) {
    Stetho.initialize(
            Stetho.newInitializerBuilder(this)
                    .enableDumpapp(Stetho.defaultDumperPluginsProvider(this))
                    .enableWebKitInspector(Stetho.defaultInspectorModulesProvider(this))
                    .build()
    );
}

Option 2: Only include Stetho for debug builds, and create different Application classes for debug and release builds.

Thanks to Gradle, applications can have different source sets for different build variants. By default, you have release and debug build types, so you can have three different source sets:

• debug for code you only want in debug builds
• release for code you only want in release builds
• main for code you want in all builds

Your application code is likely all currently in the main source set. You can simply create a new folder called debug next to the main folder in your application and mirror the structure of your main folder for everything you want to add for debug builds.

In this case, you want an Application class in your main source set that doesn't reference Stetho at all.

Then you want an Application class in your debug source set that initializes Stetho like you normally would.

You can see an example of this setup in the Stetho sample. Specifically, here's the main Application class, and here's the debug Application class. Also note that they set up manifests in each source set that selects which Application class to use.

Check the @Tanis answer.

Also you can use something like this:

Add the library only on debug version.

dependencies {
   debugCompile 'com.facebook.stetho:stetho:1.1.1      
 }

In your Application you can do :

public class ExampleApplication extends Application {

  @Override public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    StethoUtils.install(this);
  }
}

Then you can create different StethoUtils class in the debug/release version.

In src/debug/java/

public class StethoUtils{

   public static void install(Application application){
       Stetho.initialize(
          Stetho.newInitializerBuilder(application)
            .enableDumpapp(Stetho.defaultDumperPluginsProvider(application))
            .enableWebKitInspector(Stetho.defaultInspectorModulesProvider(application))
            .build());

   }
}

In src/release/java/

public class StethoUtils{

   public static void install(Application application){
      // do nothing
   }
}