agconnect-services.json not found, compiling without HMS - Issue

Question

Hell, I am building a Flutter app that uses both Firebase and Huawei Mobile Services and updated my flutter to 3.35 and used the community version of huawei_push. However, even though I have placed the agconnect-services.json file in the project, the Gradle build still shows the following message:

! agconnect-services.json not found, compiling without HMS

Current project structure:

android/
app/
build.gradle
google-services.json
agconnect-services.json
src/
main/
AndroidManifest.xml
agconnect-services.json (I also copied it here)

android/app/build.gradle:
plugins {
 id 'com.android.application'
 id 'com.huawei.agconnect'
 id 'com.google.gms.google-services'
}
android {
 compileSdk 36
 defaultConfig {
 applicationId "com.example.myapp"
 minSdk 24
 targetSdk 36
 versionCode 1
 versionName "1.0"
 }
}
dependencies {
 implementation platform('com.google.firebase:firebase-bom:33.5.1')
 implementation 'com.google.firebase:firebase-messaging'
}
android/settings.gradle:
pluginManagement {
 repositories {
 gradlePluginPortal()
 google()
 mavenCentral()
 maven { url 'https://developer.huawei.com/repo/' }
 }
}
dependencyResolutionManagement {
 repositoriesMode.set(RepositoriesMode.PREFER_SETTINGS)
 repositories {
 google()
 mavenCentral()
 maven { url 'https://developer.huawei.com/repo/
 ' }
 }
}

What I have tried:

• Copied agconnect-services.json both to app/ and app/src/main/

• Verified that the JSON content is valid and has the correct package name

• Added the Huawei Maven repository to both settings.gradle and root build.gradle

• Cleaned and rebuilt the project using:

 flutter clean
 ./gradlew --stop
 flutter pub get
 flutter build apk

• Using plugin version: classpath 'com.huawei.agconnect:agcp:1.9.1.301'

• Diagnostic prints confirm that the file exists:

AGC variant check \[debug\] -\> true @ .../android/app/src/main/agconnect-services.json
AGC variant check \[release\] -\> true @ .../android/app/src/main/agconnect-services.json

Yet Gradle still outputs:

! agconnect-services.json not found, compiling without HMS

Question:

What could still cause this message even though the file exists in both app/ and app/src/main/ and the plugin is applied? Is there a Gradle version or AGConnect plugin mismatch, or a specific directory the plugin now expects? Any working configuration example or explanation would be appreciated.