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Android and mobile Nix

Overview

Nix touches mobile Android in three separate layers—do not conflate them:

Layer Goal Primary entry
A. Nixpkgs androidenv Develop or build Android apps with a pinned SDK/NDK Nixpkgs Android manual
B. Robotnix Rebuild Android/AOSP images (LineageOS, GrapheneOS, …) with Nix nix-community/robotnix
C. Mobile NixOS Run NixOS on a phone (Linux userspace, not Android) mobile-nixos/mobile-nixos

Layer A is the practical default for app developers. Layers B and C are long-running community projects with very different maturity and hardware requirements.

Details

A. Nixpkgs Android SDK tooling (app development)

Nixpkgs ships androidenv helpers to compose an Android SDK from store paths instead of a hand-installed SDK tree. Typical paths:

  • android-studio-full — convenience attribute bundling a fairly complete SDK (including system images). Equivalent to androidStudioPackages.stable.full.
  • androidenv.composeAndroidPackages { … } — explicit composition: platform API levels, build-tools, NDK, emulator, system images, extras. Returns an attribute set; .androidsdk is the deployable SDK root.
  • Studio + custom SDK — android-studio.withSdk (androidenv.composeAndroidPackages { … }).androidsdk) wires a composed SDK into Android Studio and exports ANDROID_HOME / ANDROID_NDK_ROOT for Gradle and CLI tools.

Most SDK components are unfree (Google license terms). Expect config.allowUnfree = true (or a narrower predicate) and config.android_sdk.accept_license = true on the nixpkgs import (or the env var NIXPKGS_ACCEPT_ANDROID_SDK_LICENSE=1). Extra / preview licenses can be listed via composeAndroidPackages’s extraLicenses. First-time builds download SDK artifacts and need network access; offline verification of a full SDK closure is often impractical.

Use this layer inside dev shells or CI the same way as other language toolchains: pin platforms/NDK versions in Nix, not on the host.

B. Robotnix (build Android/AOSP with Nix) — alpha

Maturity: alpha / in-development (last checked upstream README: 2026-07-30).

Robotnix wraps the AOSP multi-repo build (kernel, webview, vendor blobs, signing, OTA, optional apps) in a NixOS-style module system (lib.robotnixSystem in flakes, or nix-build with a configuration attrset). Flavors historically include LineageOS, GrapheneOS, and vanilla AOSP (Pixel); optional modules cover MicroG, F-Droid, custom kernels, AVB signing, and more.

Upstream status (README, 2026-07-30):

  • Project is being picked up by a new maintainer after ~3 years unmaintained; many components remain in disrepair.
  • LineageOS and GrapheneOS upstream tracking works for now but may change.
  • Explicit warning: not ready for daily use — treat as alpha.

Component maintenance (from upstream status table; snapshot 2026-07-30):

Area Maintained (per README)
LineageOS, GrapheneOS, signing, OTA updater, F-Droid, MicroG, Pixel vendor blobs (adevtool) Yes
Vanilla AOSP, Waydroid, Anbox, Webview, kernels, emulator, Chromium source build, Seedvault, Auditor, hosts-file module No

Build requirements are heavy (hundreds of GB disk, 16GB+ RAM, long build times, user namespaces). Upstream also warns against mounting /tmp on tmpfs—intermediate AOSP artifacts can exhaust RAM. Do not treat Robotnix as a production daily-driver path; use it for experimentation, research, or custom ROM builds when you accept alpha breakage and self-support.

Robotnix builds Android; it does not install NixOS on a handset.

C. Mobile NixOS — “NixOS on your phone”

Maturity: experimental; device-dependent (last checked upstream README.adoc on development: 2026-07-30).

Mobile NixOS is a superset of NixOS aimed at abstracting differences between mobile devices—mainline Linux on supported phones, not a rebuilt Android image. Upstream docs: mobile-nixos.github.io (rendered from the repo doc/ tree on the development branch).

Expectations from upstream (README / about docs):

  • Builds are expected to succeed only against nixpkgs unstable (not stable channels).
  • Support is per device—the project targets many handsets as building blocks, but telephony, sensors, and daily-driver polish vary by device; read device docs before assuming anything works.
  • No published CI artifacts for now; follow project docs to build for supported hardware.

Distinct from Robotnix: Mobile NixOS replaces the phone OS with NixOS/Linux; Robotnix produces Android ROM images.

Maturity at a glance

App/SDK dev (androidenv) Robotnix Mobile NixOS
Typical user App developer, CI ROM builder, researcher Enthusiast on supported hardware
Maturity Stable nixpkgs tooling Alpha — not daily-driver ready Experimental — device-specific
Output SDK + tools in store Flashable Android img/OTA NixOS system on phone
Channel Match your nixpkgs pin Robotnix flake/input + upstream AOSP nixpkgs unstable
Unfree / licenses Common (SDK) AOSP/vendor blobs (separate legal stack) Device firmware blobs; MIT for repo expressions

Examples

Minimal dev shell with a composed SDK (illustrative pin; adjust platformVersions / ABI to your project). SDK fetch and license acceptance may fail without network and unfree config:

# flake.nix (excerpt)
{
  inputs.nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";

  outputs = { nixpkgs, ... }:
    let
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      pkgs = import nixpkgs {
        inherit system;
        config = {
          allowUnfree = true;
          android_sdk.accept_license = true;
        };
      };
      android = pkgs.androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
        platformVersions = [ "34" "35" "latest" ];
        includeNDK = true;
      };
    in {
      devShells.${system}.default = pkgs.mkShell {
        packages = [ android.androidsdk pkgs.jdk17 ];
        shellHook = ''
          export ANDROID_HOME="${android.androidsdk}/libexec/android-sdk"
          export ANDROID_NDK_ROOT="$ANDROID_HOME/ndk-bundle"
        '';
      };
    };
}

For a batteries-included Studio bundle without manual composition, pkgs.android-studio-full (or androidStudioPackages.stable.full) is the quick nixpkgs attribute; see the manual for withSdk if you need a custom composition.

References

See also