Android2Nix

WARNING: Currently this project requires usage of flakes. To install and enable flakes, see this Nixos Wiki link.

As you may see this repo is work in progress

This tool was build upon status-react approach of building Android apps with Nix.

Table of contents

• Built with android2nix
• Building typical Android application
• Android2nix for custom scenarios
• Known issues

Example Android apps built with android2nix

• Briar
• Conversations

Steps for building typical Android application

Set Nix up

For setting Nix up it is recommended to use provided template. To initialize template, please run flake init -t "github:Mazurel/android2nix". You can also go through it manually and see how to use it.

After setting Nix up

Load up dev shell and generate deps.json

nix develop .
# To get all options avaiable via generate, run generate --help
generate --root-dir <Android app dir>

Build the app

nix build .#release

If they are some missing dependencies, add them manually to the additional-deps.list and rerun generate command (gen_deps_list, gen_deps_urls and gen_deps_json tasks). It should go faster the second time as there is some basic caching implemented.

Steps for using android2nix in harder scenarios

Currently it is the best to look through the overlay and see how each component is used in android2nix/mkBuild.nix

TODO: Add some template for it or write some docs

Known issues

• Sometimes generate may fail on generating urls due to timeout, you will need to rerun it again.
• Sometimes dependencies are loaded incorrectly. In this case you need to add them manually to the additional-deps.list, see chapter below.
• Gradle witness breaks when you are using local repo (can be fixed)

Possible fixes for issues

Gradle can't resolve XYZ dependency

If you are facing this kind of issue, you will need to manually update additional-deps.list file (packages are newline separated). Just add <dependency and version> to this file, got into devshell and run:

generate --task gen_deps_list ...(rest of args)
generate --task gen_deps_urls ...(rest of args)
generate --task gen_deps_json ...(rest of args)

This should resolve such issue.

Gradle witness support

Currently witness is not (yet!) supported. You will need to disable it for your project when building with Nix.

mkAndroid2nixEnv arguments

Importance	Name	Default value	Description
Required	src		Source of the project
Required	pname		Name of the project
Required	devshell		devshell.toml that will be used by the project (contains Android declaration)
Required	deps		deps.json file that is generated by generate that will be used for dependencies declaration
Optional	jdk	pkgs.jdk	Java jdk pacged to be used
Optional	gradlePkg	pkgs.gradle	Gradle package to be used
Optional	enableParallelBuilding	true	Use parallel Gradle capabilites
Optional	buildType	"assembleDebug"	Gradle build type that will be used when building the project
Optional	nestedinandroid	false	(Not yet tested) Sets if android project is nested in android folder, like in flutter or react-native
Optional	extractApks	true	Extract all builded Apks and install them into output folder, otherwise whole build directory will be copied. Useful only when you do not expect Apks to be built
Optional	autoSignApks	true	Automatically sign all Apks based on current keystore settings. More about Apk signing
Optional	keystore	{ }	Android Keystore arguents. Set that can contain three different keys: alias, password and passwordKey