Posted by Amrit Sanjeev, Developer Relations Engineer and Trevor Johns, Developer Relations Engineer

Posted by Sandhya Mohan, Product Manager

Gratitude is a mental wellness Android app that encourages self-care and positivity with techniques like in-app journaling, affirmations, and vision boards. These mindfulness exercises need to be free from performance bottlenecks, bugs, and errors for the app to be truly immersive and helpful—but researching solutions and debugging code took away valuable time from the team experimenting on new features. To find a better balance, Gratitude used Gemini in Android Studio to help improve the app’s code and streamline the development process, enabling the team to implement those exciting new features faster.

Posted by Paris Hsu – Product Manager, Android Studio

Welcome to the Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop 3 release. This update delivers significant improvements across the board to enhance your productivity. While we continue to innovate with powerful, project-aware AI assistance in Gemini, this release also brings fundamental upgrades to core development workflows. Highlights include a resizable Compose Preview for faster UI iteration and robust app Backup & Restore tools to ensure smooth app transfers across devices for your users. These additions, alongside a more context-aware Gemini, aim to streamline every phase of your development process.

These features are delivered as part of our new monthly release cadence for Android Studio, which allows us to provide improvements more frequently. Learn more about this change and how we’re accelerating development with monthly releases for Android Studio.

What’s New in Android Studio Narwhal 3 Feature Drop

Develop with AI

Since launching Gemini in Android Studio, we’ve been working hard to introduce features and integrations across Studio with the needs of Android developers in mind. Developers have been telling us about the productivity benefits AI brings to their workflow — such as Entri, who reduced their UI development time per screen by 40%.

With this release, enhanced how you interact with Gemini — with improved options for providing project context, file attachments, and support for image attachments.

AGENTS.md: providing project-level context to Gemini

AGENTS.md is a Markdown file that lets you provide project-specific instructions, coding style rules, and other guidance that Gemini automatically uses for context. The AGENTS.md file can be checked into your version control system (like Git), ensuring your entire team shares the same core instructions and receives consistent, context-aware AI assistance. AGENTS.md files are located right alongside your code; use multiple AGENTS.md files across different directories for more granular control over your codebase.

AGENTS.md automatically included in Context Drawer

Sample AGENTS.md file

We’re making it much easier to provide rich, on-the-fly context. That’s why we are also excited to share that two powerful features, Image Attachment and the @File Context, are graduating from Studio Labs and are now stable:

Image attachment – Gemini in Android Studio

The ability to attach images to your queries with Gemini is now available in the stable channel! This feature accelerates UI development and improves architectural understanding. You can:

• Generate UI from a mock-up: Provide a design image and ask Gemini to generate the Compose code.
• Understand an existing screen: Upload a screenshot and ask Gemini to explain the UI’s component structure and data flow.
• Debug UI bugs: Take a screenshot of a bug, circle the issue, and ask Gemini for solutions.

Image attachment in Gemini in Android Studio

@file attachment – Gemini in Android Studio

The File attachment and context drawer are also graduating from Studio Labs! Easily attach relevant project files to your prompts by typing @ in the chat window. Gemini can then use the full context of those files to provide more accurate and relevant answers. Gemini will also suggest files it thinks are relevant, which you can easily add or remove.

Evoke @file attachment

What’s next: Deeper integration with MCP support

Looking ahead, in our summer episode of #TheAndroidShow, we went behind the scenes with Android Studio’s new MCP (Model Context Protocol) support. This protocol enhances Gemini’s interoperability with the broader developer ecosystem, allowing it to connect to tools like GitHub. Learn how MCP support can make Gemini’s Agent Mode even more helpful for your workflow, and try it today in the Canary channel.

Optimize and refine

This release includes several new features to help you optimize your app, improve project organization, and ensure compliance.

Test app backup and restore

With new Android hardware devices coming out, ensuring a smooth app transfer experience for your users switching to a new device is critical. Android Studio now provides tools to generate a backup of your app’s data and restore it to another device. This makes it much easier to test your app’s backup and restore functionality and protect users from data loss. Additionally, you can create and attach backups to your run configurations, making it easy to utilize Backup and Restore for your day-to-day development.

Backup and restore dialog

Play policy insights

Get early warnings about potential Play policy violations to help you build more compliant apps with Play Policy Insights, now in Android Studio. The IDE now shows lint warnings directly in your code when it relates to a Google Play policy requirement. You can also integrate these lint checks into your CI/CD pipelines. These insights provide an overview of the policy, dos and don’ts, and links more resources, helping you address potential issues early in your development cycle.

Play policy insights example

Proguard inspections for overly broad keep rules

Android Studio’s Proguard file editor now warns you about keep rules that are overly broad. These rules can limit R8’s ability to optimize your code, potentially impacting app size and performance. This inspection helps you write more precise rules for a more optimized app.

Proguard inspections example

Improved Android view for multi-module projects

For those working on large projects, the Android view has a new setting to display build files directly under their corresponding modules. This change makes it easier to navigate and manage build scripts in projects with many modules.

Option to display build files in module

More control over automatic project sync

For developers working on large projects, automatic Gradle syncs can sometimes interrupt your workflow. To give you more control, we’re introducing an option to switch to manual project sync with reminders. When enabled, Android Studio will inform you when a sync is needed, but lets you decide when to run it, so there aren’t unexpected interruptions. You can try this feature by navigating to Settings > Build, Execution, Deployment > Build Tools.

Enable / Disable auto project sync

Faster UI iteration

Resizable compose preview

Building responsive UIs just got easier: Compose Preview now supports dynamic resizing, giving you instant visual feedback on how your UI adapts to different screen sizes. Simply enter Focus mode in the Compose Preview and drag the edges to see your layout change in real-time. You can even save a specific size as a new @Preview annotation with a single click, streamlining your multi-device development process.

Resizable compose preview

Summary

To recap, Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop 3 includes the following enhancements and features:

Develop with AI

• AGENTS.md support: Provide project-specific context to Gemini for more tailored responses.
• Image attachment (Stable): Easily attach image files for Gemini in Android Studio.
• @File attachment (Stable): Easily attach project files as context for Gemini in Android Studio.

Optimize and refine

• Backup and restore support: Easily test your app’s data backup and restoration flow.
• Play policy insights: Get early warnings about potential Play Policy violations.
• Proguard inspections: Identify and fix overly broad keep rules for better optimization.
• Display build files under module: Improve project navigation in the Android view.
• Manual project sync: Gain more control over when Gradle syncs occur in large projects.

Faster UI iteration

• Resizable compose preview: Dynamically resize your previews to test responsive UIs instantly.

Get started

Ready to accelerate your development? Download Android Studio Narwhal 3 Feature Drop from the stable channel today!

Your feedback is essential. Please continue to share your thoughts by reporting bugs or suggesting features. For early access to the latest features, download Android Studio from the Canary channel.

Join our vibrant Android developer community on LinkedIn, Medium, YouTube, or X. We can’t wait to see what you build!

Posted by Paris Hsu – Product Manager

Entri delivers online learning experiences across local languages to over 15 million people in India, empowering them to secure jobs and advance in their careers. To seize on the latest advancements in AI, the Entri team explored a variety of tools to help their developers create better experiences for users.

Their latest experiment? Adopting Gemini in Android Studio to enable them to move faster. Not only did Gemini speed up the teams’ work, trim tedious tasks, and foster ongoing learning, it streamlined collaboration between design and development and became an enjoyable, go-to resource that boosted the team’s productivity overall.

Turning screenshots to code—fast

To tighten build time, developers at Entri used Gemini in Android Studio to generate Compose UI code directly from mockups. By uploading screenshots of Figma designs, Gemini produced the UI structures they needed to build entire screens in minutes. Gemini played a key role in revamping the platform’s Sign-Up flow, for example, fast-tracking a process that typically takes hours to just under 45 minutes.

By streamlining the creation of Compose UIs—often from just a screenshot and a few prompts—Gemini also made it significantly easier to quickly prototype new ideas and create MVPs. This allowed their team to test concepts and validate business needs without getting bogged down by repetitive UI tweaks up front.

Entri developers found that the ability to generate code by attaching images in Gemini in Android Studio drastically reduced boilerplate work and improved alignment between design and engineering. Over time, this approach became a standard part of their prototyping process, with the team reporting 40% reduction in average UI build time per screen.

Faster experimentation to create a better app experience

The Entri team has a strong culture of experimentation, and often has multiple user-facing experiments running at once. The team found Gemini in Android Studio particularly valuable in speeding up their experimentation processes. The tool quickly produced code for A/B testing, including UI changes and feature toggles, allowing the team to conduct experiments faster and iterate in more informed ways. It also made it faster for them to get user feedback and apply it. By simplifying the early build phase and allowing for sharper testing, Gemini boosted their speed and confidence, freeing them up to create more, test faster, and refine smarter.

When it came to launching new AI learning features, Entri wanted to be first to market. With Gemini in Android Studio’s help, the Entri team rolled out their AI Teaching Assistant and Interview Coach to production much faster than they normally could. “What used to take weeks, now takes days,” said Jackson. “And what used to take hours, now takes minutes.”

Tool integration reduces context switching

Gemini in Android Studio has changed the game for Entri’s developers, removing the need to break focus to switch between tools or hunt through external documentation. Now the team receives instant answers to common questions about Android APIs and Kotlin syntax without leaving the application.

For debugging crashes, Gemini was especially useful when paired with App Quality Insights in Android Studio. By sharing stack traces directly with Gemini, developers received targeted suggestions for possible root causes and quick fixes directly in the IDE. This guidance allowed them to resolve crashes reported by Firebase and Google Play more efficiently and with less context switching. Gemini surfaced overlooked edge cases and offered alternative solutions to improve app stability, too.

Shifting focus from routine tasks to innovation

Entri developers also wanted to test the efficiency of Gemini in Android Studio on personal projects as well. They leaned on the tool to create a weather tracker, password manager, and POS billing system—all on top of their core project work at Entri. They enjoyed trying it out in their personal projects and experimenting with different use cases.

By offloading repetitive tasks and expediting initial UI and screen generation, Gemini has allowed developers to focus more on innovation, exploration, and creativity—things that often get sidelined when dealing with routine coding work. Now the team is able to spend their time refining final products, designing smarter UX, and strategizing, making their day-to-day work more efficient, collaborative, and motivating.

Get started

Ramp up your development processes with Gemini in Android Studio.

Posted by Paris Hsu – Product Manager, Android Studio

The next wave of innovation is here with Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop. We’re thrilled to announce that Gemini in Android Studio’s Agent Mode is now available in the stable release, ready to tackle your most complex coding challenges. This release also brings powerful new tools for XR development, continued quality improvements, and key updates to enhance your productivity and help you build high-quality apps.

Dive in to learn more about all the updates and new features designed to supercharge your workflow.

Gemini in Android Studio: Agent Mode

Develop with Gemini

Try out Agent Mode

Go beyond chat and assign tasks to Gemini. Gemini in Android Studio’s Agent Mode is a powerful AI feature designed to handle complex, multi-stage development tasks. To use Agent Mode, click Gemini in the sidebar and then select the Agent tab. You can describe a high-level goal, like adding a new feature, generating comprehensive unit tests, or fixing a nuanced bug.

The agent analyzes your request, breaks it down into smaller steps, and formulates an execution plan that uses IDE tools, such as reading and writing files and performing Gradle tasks, and can span multiple files in your project. It then iteratively suggests code changes, and you’re always in control—you can review, accept, or reject the proposed changes and ask the agent to iterate based on your feedback. Let the agent handle the heavy lifting while you focus on the bigger picture.

After releasing Agent Mode to Canary, we had positive feedback from the developers who tried it. We were so excited about the feature’s potential, we moved it to the stable channel faster than ever before, so that you can get your hands on it. Try it out and let us know what you build.

Gemini in Android Studio: Agent Mode

Currently, the default model offered in the free tier in Android Studio has a shorter context length, which can limit the depth of response from some agent questions and tasks. In order to get the best performance from Agent Mode, you can bring your own key for the public Gemini API. Once you add your Gemini API key with a paid GCP project, you’ll then be able to use the latest Gemini 2.5 Pro with a full 1M context window from Android Studio. Remember to pick the “Gemini 2.5 Pro” from the model picker in the chat and agent input boxes.

Gemini in Android Studio: model selector

Rules in prompt library

Tailor the response from Gemini to fit your project’s specific needs with Rules in the prompt library. You can define preferred coding styles, tech stacks, languages, or output formats to help Gemini understand your project standards for more accurate and personalized code assistance. You can set these preferences once, and they’ll be automatically applied to all subsequent prompts sent to Gemini. For example, you can create a rule such as, “Always provide concise responses in Kotlin using Jetpack Compose.” You can also set rules at the IDE level for personal use across projects, or at the project level, which can be shared with teammates by adding the .idea folder to your version control system.

Rules in prompt library

Transform UI with Gemini [Studio Labs]

You can now transform UI code within the Compose Preview environment using natural language, directly in the preview. This experimental feature, available through Studio Labs, speeds up UI development by letting you iterate with simple text commands. To use it, right-click in the Compose Preview and select Transform UI With Gemini. Then enter your natural language requests, such as “Center align these buttons,” to guide Gemini in adjusting your layout or styling, or select specific UI elements in the preview for better context. Gemini will then edit your Compose UI code in place, which you can review and approve.

Immersive development

XR Android Emulator and template

Kickstart your extended reality development! Android Studio now includes:

• XR Android Emulator: The XR Android Emulator now launches embedded within the IDE by default. You can deploy your Jetpack app, navigate the 3D space, and use the Embedded Layout Inspector directly inside Android Studio.
• XR template: Get a head start on your next project with a new template specifically designed for Jetpack XR. This provides a solid foundation with boilerplate code to begin your immersive experience development journey right away.

XR Android Emulator

XR Android template in new project template

Embedded Layout Inspector for XR

The embedded Layout Inspector now supports XR applications, which lets you inspect and optimize your UI layouts within the XR environment. Get detailed insights into your app’s component structure and identify potential layout issues to create more polished and performant experiences.

Embedded Layout Inspector for XR

Android Partner Device Labs available with Android Device Streaming

Android Partner Device Labs are device labs operated by Google OEM partners, such as Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, OnePlus, vivo, and others, and expand the selection of devices available in Android Device Streaming. To learn more, see Connect to Android Partner Device Labs.

Android Device Streaming supports Android Partner Device Labs

Optimize and refine

Jetpack Compose preview quality improvements

We’ve made several enhancements to Compose previews to make UI iteration faster and more intuitive:

• Improved code navigation: You can now click on a preview’s name to instantly jump to its @Preview definition, or click an individual component within the preview to navigate directly to the function where it’s defined. Hover states and improved keyboard arrow navigation make moving through multiple previews a breeze.
• Preview picker: The new Compose preview picker is now available. You can click any @Preview annotation in your Compose code to access the picker and easily manage your previews.

Compose preview: Improved code navigation

Compose preview picker

K2 mode by default

Android Studio now uses the K2 Kotlin compiler by default. This next-generation compiler brings significant performance improvements to the IDE and your builds. By enabling K2, we are paving the way for future Kotlin programming language features and an even faster, more robust development experience in Kotlin.

K2 mode setting

16 KB page size support

To help you prepare for the future of Android hardware, this release adds improved support for transitioning to 16 KB page sizes. Android Studio now offers proactive warnings when building apps that are incompatible with 16 KB devices. You can use the APK Analyzer to identify which specific libraries in your project are incompatible. Lint checks also highlight the native libraries which are not 16 KB aligned. To test your app in this new environment, a dedicated 16 KB emulator target is also available in the AVD Manager.

16 KB page size support: APK Analyzer indication

16 KB page size support: Lint checks

Services compatibility policy

Android Studio offers service integrations that help you and your team make faster progress as you develop, release, and maintain Android apps. Services are constantly evolving and may become incompatible with older versions of Android Studio. Therefore, we are introducing a policy where features that depend on a Google Cloud service are supported for approximately a year in each version of Android Studio. The IDE will notify you when the current version is within 30 days of becoming incompatible so you can update it.

Example notification for services compatibility policy

Summary

To recap, Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop includes the following enhancements and features:

Develop with Gemini

• Gemini in Android Studio: agent mode: use Gemini for tackling complex, multi-step coding tasks.
• Rules in Prompt Library: Customize Gemini’s output for your project’s standards.
• Transform preview with Gemini [Studio Labs]: Use natural language to iterate on Compose UI.

Immersive development

• Embedded XR Android Emulator: Test and debug XR apps directly within the IDE.
• XR template: A new project template to kickstart XR development.
• Embedded Layout Inspector for XR: Debug and optimize your UI in an XR environment.
• Android Partner Device Labs available with Android Device Streaming: access more Google OEM partner devices.

Optimize and refine

• Compose preview improvements: Better navigation and a new picker for a smoother workflow.
• K2 mode by default: Faster performance with the next-gen Kotlin compiler.
• 16KB page size support: Lint warnings, analysis, and an emulator to prepare for new devices.
• Services compatibility policy: Stay up-to-date for access to integrated Google services.

Get started

Ready to accelerate your development? Download Android Studio Narwhal Feature Drop and start exploring these powerful new features today! As always, your feedback is crucial to us.

Check known issues, report bugs, suggest improvements, and be part of our vibrant community on LinkedIn Medium, YouTube, or X. Let’s build the future of Android apps together!