I think this is working as intended. ActivityScenario.close essentially just calls Activity.finish. I'm not super familiar with recent tasks but I believe it will show anything recently launched.

Hey, thanks for the response.

Please let me clarify before you close this. The issue here is that blank white screen apps are being left open on my phone after tests complete "normally". This has to be unexpected behavior.

Also, the docs for finish state:

    /**
     * Call this when your activity is done and should be closed.  The
     * ActivityResult is propagated back to whoever launched you via
     * onActivityResult().
     */
    public void finish() {
        finish(DONT_FINISH_TASK_WITH_ACTIVITY);
    }

Alternatively, there is finishAndRemoveTask:

    /**
     * Call this when your activity is done and should be closed and the task should be completely
     * removed as a part of finishing the root activity of the task.
     */
    public void finishAndRemoveTask() {
        finish(FINISH_TASK_WITH_ROOT_ACTIVITY);
    }

finishAndRemoveTask is what I expect instrument tests to cleanup with.

Thanks for the pointer. We probably could consider calling finishAndRemoveTask on the EmptyActivity if test is running on API >= 21, but more investigation would be needed on any potential side effects.

I'd be nervous about changing existing behavior and modifying ActivityScenario.close to call finishAndRemoveTask instead of finish. One could easily argue that it is more expected for a recently used Activity to show up in Recent tasks

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

I can see the valid arguments for ending an ActivityScenario with finish so that the task stays in the task list, especially for that to at least be an option. It is the original behavior, and I think it matches the behavior of a user closing the app by just hitting the home button?

As for finishAndRemoveTask, I think this matches the behavior of the user exiting the app, and then going to the Recent Tasks and removing it. I think this is another normal way for users to close apps. I think the main benefit is that this is the most clean way of disposing of a test completely. If you consider that the device likely did not have the app in the task list before the test started (since tests should start with a device that is as close as possible to a blank slate), then this also means that it diposing the test returns the device to a state most similar to where it was before, and is more prepared to begin another test.

I wonder if selecting the activity dispose strategy could be a part of the ActivityScenario API, to support both methods?

In general our philosophy with ActivityScenario is to try to focus on the most common use cases. There is a concern that too much niche functionality over complicates the API surface and makes it harder to use and maintain.

If calling finishAndRemoveTask is important for your use case could you write your own custom logic on teardown to dispose of the activity?

I can try. Please feel free to close this in the meantime.