DESCRIBE THE ISSUE IN DETAIL: Assume we have one module A, that declares permission with manifest placeholder:

...
<uses-permission android:name="foo.BAR${permissionSuffix}" />
...

Also we have another module B that have dependency on module A. This module has some unit tests and enabled android.testOptions.unitTests.includeAndroidResources = true in build.gradle. To run unit tests I need to declare manifest placeholder for test variants in module B in build.gradle:

android {
    testVariants.configureEach {
        mergedFlavor.manifestPlaceholders += [
                "permissionSuffix" : "test",
        ]
    }

    unitTestVariants.configureEach {
        mergedFlavor.manifestPlaceholders += [
                "permissionSuffix" : "test",
        ]
    }
}

When I'm trying to run unit tests in module B I'm getting the error:

> Task :another-dependency:processDebugUnitTestManifest FAILED
another-dependency/build/intermediates/tmp/manifest/test/debug/tempFile1ProcessTestManifest8712134807579346491.xml:7:5-98 Error:
        Attribute uses-permission#foo.BAR${permissionSuffix}@name at tempFile1ProcessTestManifest8712134807579346491.xml:7:5-98 requires a placeholder substitution but no value for <permissionSuffix> is provided.

See http://g.co/androidstudio/manifest-merger for more information about the manifest merger.


FAILURE: Build failed with an exception.

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':another-dependency:processDebugUnitTestManifest'.
> Manifest merger failed : Attribute uses-permission#foo.BAR${permissionSuffix}@name at tempFile1ProcessTestManifest8712134807579346491.xml:7:5-98 requires a placeholder substitution but no value for <permissionSuffix> is provided.

But it works correctly with AGP 7.3.1.

Sample project to reproduce: https://github.com/bacecek/sample-checking-assistant-role/tree/broken-test-manifest-placeholders

Studio Build: Android Studio Electric Eel | 2022.1.1. Build #AI-221.6008.13.2211.9477386, built on January 11, 202 Version of Gradle Plugin: 7.4.0 Version of Gradle: 7.5.1 Version of Java: Temurin 17.0.5 OS: macOS 13.1