androidai-toolstutorials

How to Use Android CLI and Official Skills With Any AI Agent

A practical tutorial for Android CLI 1.0 and official Android skills: install the CLI, list and add skills, ground Gemini, Claude Code, Codex, or Antigravity in current Android patterns.

September 17, 2026

Generic coding agents write Android code that compiles and still looks five years old: XML layouts, Navigation 2 graphs, Camera2 boiler, and Gradle plugins the project already left behind. Google’s answer is not another chat panel. It is a stable command-line tool plus a library of Android skills — short, AI-optimized instruction files that tell any agent how official Android work is supposed to look in 2026.

Android CLI reached stable 1.0 at Google I/O 2026. Skills live in the public android/skills repository and follow the open Agent Skills standard (SKILL.md per directory). This guide is the setup and first-week workflow, using only official docs and talks.

What Android CLI actually does

Android CLI is a single android binary that agents and scripts can call. Official examples include:

Automating SDK and environment setup
Scaffolding projects from templates
Managing virtual devices from a terminal
Running Journeys (end-to-end UI tests) under your direction
Bridging into Android Studio for symbol lookup, file warnings, and Compose preview rendering
Installing and updating official skills

It is not a replacement for Gradle or adb. It is the layer that lets an agent use those tools without inventing flags from memory.

Close-up of a developer working at a laptop during an Android coding session

What a skill is (and is not)

A skill is a folder with a SKILL.md file and optional extra resources. The markdown is written for models, not for a human tutorial: trigger metadata, current library versions, and the exact sequence an agent should follow.

Skills are on-demand. Unlike a giant AGENTS.md dumped into every prompt, the agent reads the skill description first and only loads the full file when the task matches. That keeps the context window smaller and the advice current.

Official first-wave and later skills cover work that models routinely get wrong:

Navigation 3 setup and migration
Edge-to-edge display
AGP 9 upgrades
XML-to-Compose migration
R8 configuration review
Adaptive UI for phones, foldables, and large screens
CameraX migration from Camera1 or raw Camera2
Testing setup and Journeys
Display glasses / Compose Glimmer for XR
Perfetto SQL against a local trace

Google also published a CameraX migration skill note in September 2026: update CameraX to 1.5.2 or 1.6.0+ before running that migration on Android 17 devices, to avoid a crash tied to a new dynamic range mode.

Install Android CLI and ground your agent

Follow the current Android CLI overview. After the binary is on your PATH:

Confirm the tool: android --version
Initialize the agent environment: android init
This installs the base android-cli skill so the model knows the command surface.
List what is available: android skills list
Search when you know the job, not the id: android skills find camera
Install one skill: android skills add camerax-migration
(Use the exact id from list / find. Official docs also show android skills add --skill=<id>.)
Re-run android skills add <id> later to refresh an already installed skill.

android skills also supports remove, update, and --all when you want the catalog, not a single workflow.

Point the agent at the right folders

Skills must live where the tool looks:

Project root: .skills/ or .agent/skills/ for CLI-oriented layouts
Android Studio Agent Mode (Quail 1 and later): .agents/skills or .android-studio/skills

Older Studio builds loaded .skills and agent/skills. If you upgrade to Quail 1+, move those folders so Agent Mode still sees them.

In Android Studio you can also @-mention a skill in the agent box, or just describe the task and let the model pick the matching skill.

A first useful loop: migrate camera code with a skill

This is the pattern that should replace “paste the Camera2 sample from 2018 into chat.”

Open the module that still talks to android.hardware.Camera or raw Camera2.
Install the official CameraX skill (android skills find camera then android skills add with the listed id).
Confirm CameraX is on 1.5.2 or 1.6.0+ in Gradle before you let the agent touch Android 17 devices.
Prompt the agent with a bounded job: Use the CameraX migration skill. Replace the preview + still-capture path in this module. Keep our existing permission flow. Do not change unrelated screens.
Review the plan or diff before accept. Check preview on a phone and a foldable or tablet if you ship large screens — CameraX viewfinder handling is part of why the skill exists.
Run the module and a Journey if you installed testing skills.

The same loop applies to Navigation 3, edge-to-edge, and AGP 9: install the skill, name the module, define “done,” then review.

Android smartphone on a wooden desk used during app testing

Use the CLI from outside Android Studio

Stable CLI is built for any agent: Gemini in Studio, Gemini CLI, Google Antigravity, Claude Code, Codex, and scripts in CI.

Typical agent-facing commands after android init:

android skills list / find / add — keep the model’s playbook current
Device and test commands documented on the CLI page — including Journeys once the matching skill is installed
android studio subcommands — find declarations, find usages, open files, and related Studio-backed analysis when the IDE is available

Do not ask the model to invent adb or emulator flags when the CLI already wraps the task. That is the whole point of the android-cli skill.

Studio Agent Mode versus CLI skills

Use both. They solve different seats at the desk.

Android Studio Agent Mode is the right place for Planning Mode, Next Edit Prediction, Compose previews, and in-IDE review.
Android CLI + skills is the right place when the agent lives in a terminal, another IDE, or CI, or when you want the same Navigation 3 / CameraX instructions on every machine.

Skills are portable markdown. Commit project-local skills that encode your architecture (package names, module graph, design system). Leave Google’s catalog skills to the CLI updater so you do not freeze last quarter’s API names in git.

Habits that keep the agent honest

One skill per job. Do not install the entire catalog into a tiny bugfix prompt.
Name the module and the acceptance check in the prompt.
After a migration skill runs, compile, open the affected preview, and scan Gradle for version pins the skill expected.
Treat CameraX 1.5.2 / 1.6.0+ as a hard gate on Android 17, not a suggestion.
Re-run android skills add on a schedule. Skills exist because the recommended pattern moved.

Conclusion

Android CLI 1.0 plus official skills is how you stop an agent from teaching your repo deprecated Android. Install the CLI, run android init, add only the skills that match this week’s work, and keep those files updated. The model can still write the code. The skill file is what keeps that code on the current platform.