Android sys img picker by moondial-pal · Pull Request #2843 · beeware/briefcase

moondial-pal · 2026-05-19T01:26:42Z

Added two step selection flow that fetches all available compatible images from sdkmanager --list.
Hard coded version is set if default is selected.

This enables the user to select an android version when creating a new emulator.

Fixes #737

PR Checklist:

I will abide by the BeeWare Code of Conduct
I have read and have followed the CONTRIBUTING.md file
This PR was generated or assisted using an AI tool

Assisted-by: Claude Sonnet 4.6

moondial-pal · 2026-05-19T01:31:48Z

The approach was revised during the PyCon sprint after a discussion with @mhsmith.
Am going to work on aligning tests and see if I can nail this down.

… and no system image.

…rmed versions in list_available_system_images

…e across platforms

moondial-pal · 2026-05-23T16:35:56Z

Are the 3 CI failures pre-existing or am I goofing something here?

docs-lint broken https://www.x.org/ link in x11passthrough.md, not touched by my PR
Windows ARM PySide6 build, similar failure visible in recent main branch CI runs
ReadTheDocs appears to be an infrastructure build failure?

I checked recent CI runs on main and found some of these issues crop up there.
I'm not sure how to get them to pass at this point 😅

mhsmith · 2026-05-25T13:40:05Z

Yes, the failures aren't related to this PR, so you don't need to worry about them.

Thanks for the updates, I'll look at this in a couple of days.

mhsmith · 2026-06-03T17:46:32Z

+        for line in output.splitlines():
+            package = line.split("|")[0].strip()
+            if not package.startswith("system-images"):
+                continue


The code above this point could be replaced with a call to list_installed_system_images.

Sorry, not replaced exactly, but the duplicate code should be factored out.

The duplication with list_installed_system_images is still unresolved.

moondial-pal · 2026-06-04T03:36:45Z

Thanks for the detailed feedback. I'll work through each point.
The suggestion to factor out the parsing logic and treat versions independently makes a lot of sense. I'll get back to you with updates.

moondial-pal · 2026-06-18T02:54:46Z

Digging into the API level sorting here is the current state of the API level selection wizard for feedback:

I had some questions before going any further.

android-CANARY and android-CinnamonBun have no numeric component, so currently they sort to the bottom of the list alphabetically rather than near a numeric position.
CinnamonBun is the codename for the 37 preview.
CANARY is a rolling pre-release with no fixed API level.
How would we want to sort those?
android-37.0 and android-CinnamonBun both appear to refer to the same underlying release.
Should these be de-duplicated or is showing both acceptable?
The API level prompt currently defaults to 31.
Do we want to stick with that or have the wizard default to the latest?

That brings up another question that may be out of scope for this pr but how do we want to handle default API level selection as the years progress?

mhsmith · 2026-06-18T23:11:00Z

android-CANARY and android-CinnamonBun have no numeric component, so currently they sort to the bottom of the list alphabetically rather than near a numeric position.
CinnamonBun is the codename for the 37 preview.
CANARY is a rolling pre-release with no fixed API level.
How would we want to sort those?

The bottom of the list looks fine to me, since they are the newest versions.

android-37.0 and android-CinnamonBun both appear to refer to the same underlying release.
Should these be de-duplicated or is showing both acceptable?

If they have separate SDK packages, then let's show them separately. At some point, I think the package with the codename will disappear, but existing emulators should continue to work.

The API level prompt currently defaults to 31.
Do we want to stick with that or have the wizard default to the latest?

That brings up another question that may be out of scope for this pr but how do we want to handle default API level selection as the years progress?

The ideal solution is probably to make it default to target_os_version. But you don't have to do that in this PR unless you want to; sticking with the current default is fine.

moondial-pal · 2026-06-19T14:51:41Z

Sounds good on all three.
Keeping current sort order for numeric and named entries.
The default will remain android-31 for now, will tackle target_os_version in a separate PR.

…_api_level logic with gradle.py

moondial-pal · 2026-06-28T15:14:47Z

Still working on this. I have been on a camping/road trip for the past 9 days and won't return until 7/6/26 😅. I should be able to submit something that week.

… wizard defaults

moondial-pal · 2026-07-08T02:59:29Z

After hitting an issue with a default selection for the tag, it comes to mind that a similar edge case could occur if android-31 isn't available for the user's architecture. Honestly not sure how likely that is, but the API level prompt will crash since DEFAULT_API_LEVEL won't be in the options list. Essentially, the tag prompt had the same issue and I fixed it with self.DEFAULT_TAG if self.DEFAULT_TAG in tags else tags[0]. Should I apply a similar pattern for the API level default, or would you prefer a different fallback?

mhsmith · 2026-07-08T08:36:39Z

ARM64 and x86_64 are our only supported architectures for the build machine, and we know they are both available for the current hard-coded default API level. So I don't think we need to worry about that now.

mhsmith · 2026-07-10T11:08:30Z

Hi, I saw your comment on the community call, so I'll look at this as soon as I can. In future, you can post a comment on a PR to let us know it's ready for another review.

moondial-pal · 2026-07-12T15:39:45Z

Hi, I saw your comment on the community call, so I'll look at this as soon as I can. In future, you can post a comment on a PR to let us know it's ready for another review.

I was on the fence on if that would be a nuisance or not. Only because I know that yourself and Russell have your work cut out for you as far as reviews go. Anytime I have submitted a PR both of you have always reviewed within a very reasonable time.
I learn a little bit more about the contributing norms with each PR, so thanks for mentioning that.
Absolutely. Moving forward I'll make sure to communicate when I have something ready for review.

Honestly because I was on that long trip, I hadn't been able to work on submitting anything until 2 days before the meeting. I had nothing else to post or talk about so I thought I would at least update the progress of this PR 😅

moondial-pal · 2026-07-12T15:44:59Z

I believe I have addressed all the feedback. Ready for review.

freakboy3742 · 2026-07-30T06:04:28Z

@moondial-pal Apologies for the delay in reviewing this - we should be able to get to this in the next couple of days.

mhsmith

Sorry for taking so long. This is looking pretty good now, just a few more comments, plus one unresolved conversation from the previous round.

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:19:33Z

+        tag = self.tools.console.selection_question(
+            intro="Select the system image tag:",
+            description="Tag",


Is there any precedent for calling this a "tag"? "Type" seems like a more obvious name, and has previously been used in Android Studio (see right side of screenshot).

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:24:38Z

+
+        # Ask the user to select an API level.
+        api_levels = sorted(
+            {api_level for api_level, _, abi in parsed_images},


Suggested change

{api_level for api_level, _, abi in parsed_images},

{api_level for api_level, _, _ in parsed_images},

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:27:41Z

+        """Returns a sorted list of system image package identifiers available for the
+        current architecture and minimum Android version.
+
+        e.g., ``{"system-images;android-31;default;x86_64"}``


The sorting seems redundant, since they'll be sorted again in the one place that calls this function. In which case, maybe it could return a set instead, which would be more consistent with list_installed_system_images, and would make the docstring example syntax correct.

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:33:33Z

+            raise BriefcaseCommandError(
+                f"""\
+No Android system images are available for your architecture


This could use the same dedent function as your other PR.

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:38:57Z

+This may be caused by a network connectivity issue or an unsupported
+architecture. Check your network connection and re-run `briefcase run android`.


Network connectivity seems like an unlikely cause, because if the sdkmanager failed to contact the server, it should have caused a CalledProcessError. However, it would be worth mentioning min_os_version and its value, since that's the other thing used for filtering here. There's no guarantee that CANARY will continue to exist, so setting min_os_version to a very high number could return no results.

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:41:40Z

+            intro="Select the API level for the emulator:",
+            description="API level",
+            options=api_levels,
+            default=self.DEFAULT_API_LEVEL,


If min_os_version is set high enough, this may not be a valid default. There should be a fallback to default to the first item, like in the other question below.

mhsmith · 2026-08-10T21:57:39Z

+            intro="Select the system image tag:",
+            description="Tag",
+            options=tags,
+            default=self.DEFAULT_TAG if self.DEFAULT_TAG in tags else tags[0],


It doesn't look like this tags[0] fallback is unit tested.

moondial-pal · 2026-08-11T13:33:20Z

Sorry for taking so long. This is looking pretty good now, just a few more comments, plus one unresolved conversation from the previous round.

Not an issue at all, I know this issue has been a bit drawn out.
I'll work on the feedback, thanks.

moondial-pal and others added 4 commits May 14, 2026 17:26

Add system image selection to create_emulator

a545d22

Add tests for system image selection in create_emulator

f60e924

Add changelog entry for issue 737

11da731

Provide selector for available android images

40a4f9e

moondial-pal added 6 commits May 19, 2026 12:54

Filter all available system images by architecture and minimum version.

88ce516

Update change file to reflect new selection in wizard.

48fccb9

Update tests for missing coverage of dotted versions, named versions,…

2a5dc7a

… and no system image.

Correct misplaced tests and add coverage for dotted, named, and malfo…

11ab15c

…rmed versions in list_available_system_images

Add arm64-v8a variants to ensure converage on ARM Mac

6f79400

Add mock_tools fixture to lock architecture for deterministic coverag…

5644e62

…e across platforms

moondial-pal marked this pull request as ready for review May 23, 2026 16:36

mhsmith self-requested a review May 25, 2026 13:40

mhsmith reviewed Jun 3, 2026

View reviewed changes

moondial-pal added 4 commits June 13, 2026 12:00

Remove default argument from list_available_system_images

c979c38

Add test for custom API level filtering in list_available_system_images

290a0d9

Update ANDROID_MIN_OS_VERSION to 24 to match the template default

b0c020a

Add _parse_system_image helper and refactor list_available_system_images

a4cb82d

Select API level and tag separately in create_emulator, and share min…

6da467d

…_api_level logic with gradle.py

moondial-pal added 4 commits July 6, 2026 19:09

Add tests for min_api_level covering str, int, and default fallback

2256f48

Add DEFAULT_API_LEVEL and DEFAULT_TAG properties for consistency with…

d8cf956

… wizard defaults

Update test data to reflect ANDROID_MIN_OS_VERSION change to 24

78cd901

Update comments to reflect API level and tag terminology

c9f0b68

moondial-pal added 2 commits July 7, 2026 19:52

Add test for create_emulator when app min_os_version is present

ffa16a8

Fall back to first available tag if DEFAULT_TAG is not available

f03a355

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into android-sys-img-picker

7af18df

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into android-sys-img-picker

c97d6f9

mhsmith reviewed Aug 10, 2026

View reviewed changes

	{api_level for api_level, _, abi in parsed_images},
	{api_level for api_level, _, _ in parsed_images},

		This may be caused by a network connectivity issue or an unsupported
		architecture. Check your network connection and re-run `briefcase run android`.

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moondial-pal commented May 19, 2026

PR Checklist:

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