Is there any documentation or reference file for the minimum, recommended, or maximum Android tooling versions?

[beeradmoore]

Android framework version

Other

Affected platform version

N/A

Description

I was wondering if there is any information about keeping up to date with Android tooling versions recommended for net-android. I guess the tl;dr; of this is along the lines of "What Xcode version should I install?" from iOS-land.

I was setting up our new CI/CD pipeline today and I was using sdkmanager to install required tools. I had no idea what version of build-tools, cmdline-tools, platform-tools, etc to install. The only thing I was sure of was platforms;android-36 for today and platforms;android-37 for when we go to test out .NET 11 previews.

This made me wonder about what my own system has installed. My versions were not the latest, some things seems a few versions behind. I asked another dev and we had mix matched versions of this.

For our small team we manage .NET SDK and Xcode versions manually and I just post a new Slack message that we are now using version X. I have never updated anyone on Android tooling outside of platforms;android-35 to platforms;android-36.

I know there is InstallAndroidDependencies, but I don't know what dependencies that is installing. I assume that had to be written down somewhere so I did some digging and I came across Configuration.props in this repo. I am unsure if it is part of installing I did also come across Xamarin.Installer.AndroidSDK but that looks like it might be tooling specific to this repository.

When looking at the state of the file at tag 36.1.69 of Configuration.props I could see some interesting things. That is assuming the file is relevant for the end-user developers and not the people building this repository.

<AndroidLatestStableApiLevel Condition="'$(AndroidLatestStableApiLevel)' == ''">36</AndroidLatestStableApi>
<XABuildToolsFolder Condition="'$(XABuildToolsFolder)' == ''">36.0.0</XABuildToolsFolder>
<CommandLineToolsFolder Condition=" '$(CommandLineToolsFolder)' == '' ">19.0</CommandLineToolsFolder>
<CommandLineToolsVersion Condition=" '$(CommandLineToolsVersion)' == '' ">13114758_latest</CommandLineToolsVersion>
(this one is from main)
<_XAAndroidNdkPkgRevision>28.2.13676358</_XAAndroidNdkPkgRevision>

My first question would be, how does Android tooling versioning work?

Is there a single version that developers should be using (eg, build tools 36.0.0) because it is what we are told to use. Does using the latest version (build-tools;37.0.0) potentially pose problems and we should avoid it, or should we always be using the latest.

My second question would be if there is specific versions we should use, or specific minimums, or specific maximums, where would we be able to find them?

I had a plan to build a tool that on release grabs Configuration.props from the tagged branch and pulls the specific information that I we would care about and then have post to our internal channels. But if that file is irrelevant for what teams should be using for their own projects then I'll think of something else.

Steps to Reproduce

N/A

Did you find any workaround?

No response

Relevant log output

[jonathanpeppers]

Short answer: Use dotnet build -t:InstallAndroidDependencies against your project — that's the supported way to get the exact tooling versions the .NET for Android workload you're using expects. There isn't a published table of minimum/recommended/maximum versions; "recommended" = whatever the installed workload picks via that target.

Recommended CI flow

dotnet build -t:InstallAndroidDependencies \
    -f net10.0-android \
    -p:AndroidSdkDirectory=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT \
    -p:JavaSdkDirectory=$JAVA_HOME \
    -p:AcceptAndroidSdkLicenses=True

Run that once per agent against any project (or a tiny stub project) — it's idempotent and only installs what's missing. When you bump the Microsoft.Android workload, re-running it picks up the new component versions automatically, so you don't need to track build-tools / platform-tools / cmdline-tools versions yourself.

Docs: Android SDK setup → InstallAndroidDependencies.

Why this is better than scraping Configuration.props

• Configuration.props on main tracks .NET 11 previews (currently API 37, build-tools 36.0.0, NDK 28.2.13676358, JDK 21). If you're shipping on .NET 10 / API 36 today, those numbers don't apply to you — pulling them into your CI would push your machines onto preview tooling.
• If you really want to pin a list yourself, read Configuration.props from the release tag matching the workload version you ship with (e.g. 36.1.69/Configuration.props), not main. But InstallAndroidDependencies is much less brittle.

On "min / recommended / max"

• We don't publish a min/max matrix. The workload is tested against the versions InstallAndroidDependencies selects — that's "recommended."
• platforms;android-XX is driven by your TargetFramework (e.g., net10.0-android36.0 needs platforms;android-36). AndroidMinimumDotNetApiLevel (currently 24) is the floor for SupportedOSPlatformVersion.
• The NDK is only needed if you're using NativeAOT (PublishAot=true) or Mono AOT with LLVM (EnableLLVM=true). Plain Mono / CoreCLR Android apps don't need it.

[beeradmoore]

Thanks for the extra info.

I gave that a shot and could see it skipping install (because all things were installed). I did downgrade a few packages and could then see it installing them again. I then uninstalled some packages but ended up breaking it with

    /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Darwin/36.1.69/tools/Xamarin.Android.Tooling.targets(58,5): warning XA5300: 
      The Android SDK directory could not be found. Install the Android SDK by following the instructions at: https://aka.ms/dotnet-android-install-sdk
      To use a custom SDK path for a command line build, set the 'AndroidSdkDirectory' MSBuild property to the custom path.
    /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Darwin/36.1.69/targets/Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Tooling.targets(35,5): warning XARAT7003: 
      System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. (Parameter 'path1')
         at System.ArgumentNullException.Throw(String paramName)
         at System.IO.Path.Combine(String path1, String path2, String path3)
         at Xamarin.Android.Tasks.ResolveAndroidTooling.RunTask()
         at Microsoft.Android.Build.Tasks.AndroidTask.Execute()
    /usr/local/share/dotnet/packs/Microsoft.Android.Sdk.Darwin/36.1.69/tools/Xamarin.Installer.Common.targets(19,3): error MSB4044: The "InstallAndroidDependencies" task was not given a value for the required parameter "AndroidSdkPath".

I am using -p:AndroidSdkDirectory=$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT and I can still cd $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT and see everything still there. I will play with it some more on the weekend and see what the minimum installed parts required for it to get back into a working state.

When the InstallDependencies runs is that pulling the information of what to install from Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Android.Manifest-10.0.100 (v36.1.69), specifically the data/WorkloadDependncies.json inside of it?

{
  "microsoft.net.sdk.android": {
    "workload": {
      "alias": [
        "android"
      ],
      "version": "36.1.69"
    },
    "jdk": {
      "version": "[17.0,22.0)",
      "recommendedVersion": "17.0.14"
    },
    "androidsdk": {
      "packages": [
        {
          "desc": "Android SDK Build-Tools 36",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "build-tools;36.0.0"
          },
          "optional": "false"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Android SDK Command-line Tools (latest)",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "cmdline-tools;19.0"
          },
          "optional": "false"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Android Emulator",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "emulator",
            "recommendedVersion": "36.2.12"
          },
          "optional": "true"
        },
        {
          "desc": "NDK",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "ndk-bundle",
            "recommendedVersion": "27.2.12479018"
          },
          "optional": "true"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Android SDK Platform 36",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "platforms;android-36"
          },
          "optional": "false"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Android SDK Platform 36.1 (Preview)",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "platforms;android-36.1"
          },
          "optional": "true"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Android SDK Platform-Tools",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": "platform-tools",
            "recommendedVersion": "36.0.0"
          },
          "optional": "false"
        },
        {
          "desc": "Google APIs ARM 64 v8a System Image",
          "sdkPackage": {
            "id": {
              "win-x64": "system-images;android-36.1;google_apis;x86_64",
              "mac-x64": "system-images;android-36.1;google_apis;x86_64",
              "linux-x64": "system-images;android-36.1;google_apis;x86_64",
              "mac-arm64": "system-images;android-36.1;google_apis;arm64-v8a",
              "linux-arm64": "system-images;android-36.1;google_apis;arm64-v8a"
            }
          },
          "optional": "true"
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

[jonathanpeppers]

You can also look at the data/WorkloadDependencies.json info if that is useful to you.

But no, InstallAndroidDependencies is MSBuild based, it doesn't use that json file.