How to Create an Android App with Android CLI

Google’s Android CLI, released in preview in April 2026, gives developers and AI agents a clean, terminal-based interface for Android app development. If you work with agentic workflows, CI pipelines, or simply prefer your editor over a full IDE, this tool is worth understanding.

This article walks through the core workflow: installing Android CLI, setting up the SDK, creating a project, and running it on an emulator — plus how Android Skills and the Android Knowledge Base fit into AI-assisted development.

What Is Android CLI and Who Is It For?

Android CLI is an official Google tool designed primarily for AI agents, automation scripts, and CI/CD workflows. It is not a replacement for Android Studio. Think of it as the first half of a development continuum: agents and scripts handle setup and boilerplate via the CLI, then developers open the project in Android Studio for UI refinement, debugging, and production profiling.

The CLI is available for Apple Silicon, AMD64 Linux, and AMD64 Windows.

Note: Google’s internal experiments report reduced LLM token usage and faster task completion compared to agents navigating standard SDK tooling manually. These figures come from Google’s own testing and have not been independently verified.

Step 1: Install Android CLI

Download the binary from the official Android agents page and follow the platform-specific installation instructions. Once installed, the android command becomes available in your terminal.

To keep the tool current, run:

android update

Step 2: Set Up the Android SDK

Instead of downloading a full Android Studio installation, Android CLI lets you pull only the SDK components you need:

android sdk install platforms/android-35 build-tools/35.0.0

This keeps your environment lean — useful for CI runners and agent-provisioned environments where disk space and setup time matter.

Step 3: Create an Android App Project

The android create command generates a new project from an official template, with recommended architecture applied from the start:

android create empty-activity --name="My App" --output=./my-app

This produces a modern Android project with Jetpack Compose, Material 3, and a sensible default structure. No manual Gradle configuration is required to get started.

Step 4: Create an Emulator and Run Your App

Spin up a virtual device:

android emulator create

Then build the APK and deploy it:

./gradlew assembleDebug
android run --apks app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk

The CLI streamlines device creation and deployment, reducing the manual setup steps that typically slow down both human developers and AI agents working in automated pipelines.

How Android Skills and the Knowledge Base Fit In

Two companion features extend what agents can do with Android CLI:

Android Skills are modular, markdown-based instruction sets (SKILL.md files) that cover workflows like Navigation 3 setup, edge-to-edge UI implementation, and AGP 9 migrations. Skills are designed to trigger automatically when an agent’s prompt matches the skill metadata, so agents execute the right pattern without you manually attaching documentation every time.

Browse available skills via:

android skills list

The Android Knowledge Base, accessible through the android docs command, lets agents query up-to-date guidance from Android developer docs, Firebase, and Kotlin documentation. This matters because LLM training data goes stale. Even if your agent’s model is a year old, it can still retrieve current best practices through the Knowledge Base.

Android CLI vs. Android Studio: When to Use Which

Getting Started

Android CLI is in preview, so expect rough edges and evolving documentation. That said, the core workflow — install, create, build, and run — already works well for experimentation and automated workflows with agents like Gemini, Claude Code, and Codex.

Start with android create, open the output in Android Studio when you’re ready to polish, and use Android Skills to keep your agent grounded in current Android patterns.

Conclusion

Android CLI fills a real gap in Android development by giving agents and automation pipelines a clean, scriptable entry point that previously required wrapping Android Studio’s tooling. Pairing it with Android Skills and the Knowledge Base creates a workflow where agents stay aligned with current best practices, while developers retain the full power of Android Studio for the work that genuinely benefits from a graphical IDE. As the tool matures past preview, expect it to become a standard part of CI setups and agent-driven Android workflows.

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