Android

Getting a full working Android development environment is as simple as:

devenv.nix

{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  android.enable = true;
}

For a more tailored development environment you can specify specific options. Note that platformTools.version and emulator.version default to the latest available versions from nixpkgs:

devenv.nix

{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  android = {
    enable = true;
    platforms.version = [ "32" "34" ];
    systemImageTypes = [ "google_apis_playstore" ];
    abis = [ "arm64-v8a" "x86_64" ];
    cmake.version = [ "3.22.1" ];
    cmdLineTools.version = "11.0";
    tools.version = "26.1.1";
    # platformTools.version defaults to latest from nixpkgs
    buildTools.version = [ "30.0.3" ];
    emulator = {
      enable = true;
      # version defaults to latest from nixpkgs
    };
    sources.enable = false;
    systemImages.enable = true;
    ndk.enable = true;
    googleAPIs.enable = true;
    googleTVAddOns.enable = true;
    extras = [ "extras;google;gcm" ];
    extraLicenses = [
      "android-sdk-preview-license"
      "android-googletv-license"
      "android-sdk-arm-dbt-license"
      "google-gdk-license"
      "intel-android-extra-license"
      "intel-android-sysimage-license"
      "mips-android-sysimage-license"
    ];
    android-studio = {
      enable = true;
      package = pkgs.android-studio;
    };
  };
}

Since Android contains many unfree packages, you need to allow unfree packages in devenv.yaml:

devenv.yaml

nixpkgs:
  allow_unfree: true

Choosing SDK versions

The platform, build-tool, NDK and other versions you can select with platforms.version, buildTools.version, ndk.version and friends come from the androidenv packages bundled with nixpkgs. That set lags behind Google's releases, so a recently released version (for example platforms;android-36) may not be available yet, and selecting it fails.

To pick from the full, up-to-date set of versions, add the android-nixpkgs input, which is regenerated daily from Google's SDK repositories. Its presence switches the SDK source, and the release track is chosen by the input's URL ref (stable by default, or beta, preview, canary):

$ devenv inputs add android-nixpkgs github:tadfisher/android-nixpkgs --follows nixpkgs

Use a different release track by pointing the URL at .../beta, .../preview or .../canary instead.

The same options now resolve against android-nixpkgs, so you can select newer versions. platforms.version, buildTools.version, ndk.version and emulator.enable are mapped onto SDK packages automatically. Other components (system images, sources, CMake, extras) aren't covered by those options; install them by adding the android-nixpkgs derivation you want to devenv's packages directly:

devenv.nix

{ inputs, pkgs, ... }:

{
  android = {
    enable = true;
    platforms.version = [ "34" "35" "36" ];
    buildTools.version = [ "35.0.0" ];
  };

  packages = [
    (inputs.android-nixpkgs.sdk.${pkgs.system} (sdkPkgs: with sdkPkgs; [
      system-images-android-36-google-apis-playstore-x86-64
    ]))
  ];
}

Note

android-nixpkgs supports x86_64-linux, x86_64-darwin and aarch64-darwin.

Emulators

Creating emulators via the android-studio GUI may not work as expected due to conflicts between the immutable Nix store paths and Android Studio requiring a mutable path. Therefore, it's recommended to create an emulator via the CLI:

Creating an emulator

bash

avdmanager create avd --force --name my-android-emulator-name --package 'system-images;android-32;google_apis_playstore;x86_64'

After creating the emulator, you can use any text editor to develop for Android. During testing, we successfully ran a React Native project inside Android Studio by first creating the Android emulator externally as described above and then running the project inside the android-studio's terminal.

React Native

The following config works with react native starter project.

devenv.nix

{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  android = {
    enable = true;
    reactNative.enable = true;
  };
}

Flutter

The following config works with the flutter starter project.

devenv.nix

{ pkgs, ... }:

{
  android = {
    enable = true;
    flutter.enable = true;
  };
}