Getting Started with the Swift Android SDK

Platform Android
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One of the goals of the recently-announced Android Workgroup is to create an official cross-compilation Swift SDK that can build Swift packages for the various Android architectures. Until now, there have been a variety of Android SDK efforts by different parties, many of whom are now members of the Android Workgroup. We have been working over the past months to unify our efforts with an eye towards publishing a single official SDK to swift.org/install alongside the Swift SDK for WebAssembly and the Static Linux SDK.

We are pleased to announce that our first 6.2 development snapshot SDK release has been published to github.com/swift-android-sdk/swift-android-sdk/releases. That page contains instructions for downloading, installing, and configuring the Android SDK so you can try it out on your own Swift packages. As we progress towards an eventual 6.2 release, the releases page will be updated with new snapshots that will contain bug fixes and other improvements.

If you are new to Swift for Android, or if you have been using one of the other bespoke Android toolchains that are floating around the internet, we encourage you to give this candidate release a try and provide feedback.

As always, you can communicate with the Android Workgroup through these forums. You may also like to join the Swift Open Source Slack #android group for real-time discussions and troubleshooting. And if you are interested in the process by which the SDK is being generated, the pull request can be followed at: Android SDK build scripts by marcprux · Pull Request #467 · swiftlang/swift-docker · GitHub.

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We now also have a Swift 6.3 development snapshot available at: Release DEVELOPMENT-SNAPSHOT-2025-06-22-a · swift-android-sdk/swift-android-sdk · GitHub

In addition, we've released a new SDK for the latest 6.2 tag: Release 6.2-DEVELOPMENT-SNAPSHOT-2025-07-04-a · swift-android-sdk/swift-android-sdk · GitHub

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Hi Marc,

I tried the "unofficial" Android SDKs in the recent past and wanted to ask one thing before trying the new updates. I'd like to know if these Android snapshots regularly support "Embedded Swift" mode out of the box, like the swiftly dev snapshots.

I'm actively promoting cross-platform Swift with my open-source library, and recently, I've also approached Embedded Swift as a means to create super-thin libraries. So, if you need to experiment with that side of the Android SDK, I would be happy to contribute.

Thanks for your efforts,
Davide

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Embedded mode does not yet work with the Android SDK, but that would make a fabulous addition. @lukeh might have ideas about what would be involved in getting it working…

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I’m afraid I’m all about small e embedded Swift, so I don’t have anything useful to add at this stage.

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Just a note that these preliminary bundle snapshots continue to be posted, and that the latest snapshots contain fully 16 KB page-aligned Swift libraries for the first time, fulfilling the upcoming Android requirements. Also, most Android patches have now been upstreamed, with the latest trunk builds only requiring three lines of source modifications. :smiley:

The Android workgroup continues to grind toward getting an official Android SDK on swift.org, including improving the developer experience by fixing bugs and adding improvements to the Swift package manager. This is what SwiftPM outputs today when listing the static linux SDK bundle or any other bundle:

> ~/swift-6.1.2-RELEASE-fedora39/usr/bin/swift sdk list
swift-6.1.2-RELEASE_static-linux-0.0.1

and what it will after that pull:

> ~/swift-DEVELOPMENT-SNAPSHOT-2025-08-16-a-ubi9/usr/bin/swift sdk list
SDK bundle: swift-6.1.2-RELEASE_static-linux-0.0.1
SDKs:
  aarch64-swift-linux-musl
  x86_64-swift-linux-musl

As you try out these Android SDK bundle snapshots or just SDK bundles generally, please let us know or file issues on github for any problems you run into.

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