ai-toolsandroidtutorials

How to Build Android Apps Faster with Android CLI and Agent Skills

Install Android CLI 1.0, scaffold a project, manage emulators, query the Android Knowledge Base, and attach official skills so Gemini, Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity follow current Android guidance.

September 19, 2026 Yum News

Generic coding agents are good at Kotlin syntax and bad at Android’s moving parts: AGP 9 templates, emulator profiles, Navigation 3, edge-to-edge insets, and which SDK package to download. Android CLI is Google’s official command-line interface for that gap. It gives any agent — Gemini CLI, Claude Code, Codex, Google Antigravity, or a script in CI — a stable set of commands for setup, project creation, devices, screenshots, docs, and skills.

Google’s internal experiments, published on the Android Developers Blog, reported that agents using Android CLI finished environment and project setup about 3× faster and used more than 70% fewer tokens than agents that only had generic shell tools. Android CLI reached stable 1.0 at Google I/O 2026. Official docs were last updated 11 September 2026.

This guide walks through install, first project, emulator and run, the Knowledge Base, skills, and a few pitfalls that show up on Windows.

What Android CLI actually is

Android CLI is not a replacement for Android Studio. It is a thin, scriptable front door to the Android SDK and to two extra resources:

Android skills — markdown SKILL.md instruction packs that fire when a prompt matches their metadata.
Android Knowledge Base — official documentation reachable with android docs search and android docs fetch.

Typical commands an agent or a human can run:

android sdk install — download only the packages you name
android create — scaffold from official templates (default: empty-activity-agp-9)
android emulator create / start / stop / list
android run — install APKs and launch an activity or Wear component
android layout and android screen capture — dump UI trees and screenshots
android docs search / fetch — pull official guidance into the terminal
android skills list / add — attach workflow-specific skills
android init — install the base android-cli skill so agents know the tool exists
android update — pull the latest CLI

Apps created this way open in Android Studio later. On current Canary builds, android studio can also expose IDE tools (file analysis, symbol lookup) to an external agent.

Step 1 — Install Android CLI

Official landing page: developer.android.com/tools/agents.

Linux (x86_64):

curl -fsSL https://dl.google.com/android/cli/latest/linux_x86_64/install.sh | bash

macOS (Homebrew) and Windows (winget) are supported. On Windows:

winget install -e --id Google.AndroidCLI

Confirm the binary is on your PATH:

which android
# or
command -v android

Then update:

android update

Known limits from the official overview (as of 11 September 2026):

android emulator on Windows is currently disabled.
Downloading the installer from Windows PowerShell is not supported; use winget or another listed package manager.

Optional: create ~/.androidrc (macOS/Linux) or %USERPROFILE%\.androidrc (Windows) with one flag per line, for example --sdk=/path/to/sdk. Pass --no-metrics on a command if you do not want usage telemetry.

Step 2 — Teach your agent the CLI

Run this once per machine:

android init

That installs the android-cli skill so Gemini, Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity know the command surface instead of inventing adb one-liners. Google Antigravity 2.0 can also pull the Android resources bundle during onboarding or from Settings > Customizations > Build With Google Plugins.

Point the agent at official docs in AGENTS.md (or the equivalent file your tool reads):

When working on Android APIs, consult official Android documentation
via `android docs search` and `android docs fetch` before writing code.
Prefer Android CLI over ad-hoc sdkmanager and avdmanager commands.

Laptop and Android phone on a desk during app development

Step 3 — Scaffold a project

List templates, then create one:

android create list
android create --name=notes --output=./notes empty-activity-agp-9

If you omit the template name, empty-activity-agp-9 is used. --dry-run --verbose prints the files that would be copied without writing them. After creation, android describe --project_dir=./notes prints JSON metadata that other tools use to find APK outputs.

Step 4 — SDK pieces, emulator, and first run

Install only what you need:

android sdk install platform-tools
android --sdk=/opt/android-sdk sdk list

Create and start a virtual device. The default profile is medium_phone:

android emulator create --list-profiles
android emulator create --profile=medium_phone
android emulator list
android emulator start medium_phone

Build the app with your usual Gradle command, then deploy with Android CLI. android run does not build; you must pass APK paths:

android run --apks=app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk
android run --apks=app-debug.apk --device=emulator-5554
android run --apks=app-debug.apk --activity=.MainActivity

Wear and services use --type: ACTIVITY, WATCH_FACE, TILE, COMPLICATION, DECLARATIVE_WATCH_FACE, or a service component.

Stop an emulator with its serial, not its profile name:

android emulator stop emulator-5554

Step 5 — Let the agent see the screen

When you want an agent to tap UI without Espresso IDs:

android layout --pretty --output=./hierarchy.json
android screen capture --output=ui.png --annotate
android screen resolve --screenshot=ui.png --string="input tap #5"

layout --diff returns only nodes that changed since the last snapshot. screen resolve turns annotated labels (#5) into x y coordinates you can feed to adb shell input tap.

Journeys (natural-language UI tests) also run from the CLI and from Android Studio. If you need the IDE-first path, see our Journeys in Android Studio guide.

Step 6 — Search the Android Knowledge Base

Skills are for narrow, fast-moving workflows. For everything else, use the Knowledge Base instead of stuffing dozens of markdown files into context.

android docs search 'How do I improve my app performance?'
android docs fetch kb://android/topic/performance/overview

Search returns kb:// URLs. Fetch prints that page to the terminal so the agent can quote current guidance.

Step 7 — Install official Android skills

Official skills live on GitHub (android/skills) and target gaps that frontier models still miss: AGP 9, Navigation 3, CameraX migrations, Perfetto SQL, Adaptive UI, AppFunctions, Wear Compose Material 3, Credential Manager verified email, Engage SDK, Display Glasses / Compose Glimmer, testing setup, R8 analysis, and XML-to-Compose.

android skills list
android skills add --skill=navigation-3
android skills add --all

--agent=<agent-name> scopes the install when you run more than one coding agent on the same machine. Google’s skills philosophy is deliberate scarcity: they add a skill only when there is a verified knowledge gap. For Compose and Kotlin day-to-day work, community collections (for example Chris Banes’ Compose/Kotlin skills) are the usual complement.

Close-up of a developer terminal with code on a laptop

Practical agent prompt

Once CLI, init, and one or two skills are in place, a prompt like this is enough for a first feature:

Use Android CLI only for SDK, emulator, and deploy steps.
1. Confirm SDK with `android info`.
2. Create medium_phone if missing and start it.
3. Search docs for Navigation 3 start destination patterns.
4. Add a Notes list screen with Navigation 3.
5. Build with Gradle, then `android run` the debug APK.
6. Capture the home screen and dump `android layout --pretty`.

Keep Gradle as the build system. Android CLI is the control plane around it, not a replacement for the Android Gradle Plugin.

What not to expect

The CLI will not compile your app. You still run Gradle (or Studio).
Windows emulator commands are disabled; use a Linux/macOS host or a remote device for those steps.
Skills are not a second documentation site. If the model already knows the API, skip the skill and use android docs.
Telemetry records command names and a small set of enum-like flags (emulator profile names, agent names). It does not record your package names or file paths. Opt out per command with --no-metrics.

File bugs against Google Issue Tracker component 2091212.

Conclusion

Android CLI 1.0 is the missing adapter between general-purpose coding agents and the Android SDK. Install it, run android init, scaffold with android create, keep devices alive with android emulator, deploy with android run, and ground the model with android docs plus a handful of official skills. That combination is what Google measured as faster and cheaper than letting an agent wander through sdkmanager on its own.

Start at d.android.com/tools/agents, then add only the skills that match the work in front of you.