Task 'installRelease' not found in root project

Is this a bug report?

yes

Have you read the Contributing Guidelines?

yes

Environment

Environment: OS: Linux 4.13 Node: 6.11.4 Yarn: Not Found npm: 3.10.10 Watchman: 4.7.0 Xcode: N/A Android Studio: Not Found

Packages: (wanted => installed) react: ^16.0.0 => 16.0.0 react-native: ^0.50.3 => 0.50.3

Steps to Reproduce

(Write your steps here:)

1. cd android
2. ./gradlew installRelease

Expected Behavior

release version of app is installed on connected device like in previous version of react-native

Actual Behavior

$ ./gradlew installRelease
Incremental java compilation is an incubating feature.

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Task 'installRelease' not found in root project 'AppName'. Some candidates are: 'uninstallRelease'.

* Try:
Run gradlew tasks to get a list of available tasks. Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 3.648 secs

Reproducible Demo

follow steps to reproduce

related issue

https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/16617

[BuffMcBigHuge]

I was able to run manually: cd android && gradlew assembleRelease, but it’s outputting app-release-unsigned.apk.

Edit: It appears I was missing signingConfig in buildTypes > release. See example below:

...
android {
    ...
    defaultConfig { ... }
    signingConfigs {
        release {
                storeFile file(MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_FILE)
                storePassword MYAPP_RELEASE_STORE_PASSWORD
                keyAlias MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_ALIAS
                keyPassword MYAPP_RELEASE_KEY_PASSWORD
        }
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            ...
            signingConfig signingConfigs.release
        }
    }
}
...

[ThaJay]

$ react-native run-android --variant=release
Scanning folders for symlinks in /media/dj/dev/scan-app/node_modules (16ms)
JS server already running.
Building and installing the app on the device (cd android && ./gradlew installRelease)...
Incremental java compilation is an incubating feature.

FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Task 'installRelease' not found in root project 'AppName'. Some candidates are: 'uninstallRelease'.

* Try:
Run gradlew tasks to get a list of available tasks. Run with --stacktrace option to get the stack trace. Run with --info or --debug option to get more log output.

BUILD FAILED

Total time: 1.283 secs
Could not install the app on the device, read the error above for details.
Make sure you have an Android emulator running or a device connected and have
set up your Android development environment:
https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/android-setup.html