Setting up your Development Environment

This page contains the guidelines for setting up your development environment for Revolt on Android. These guidelines are important to ensure that your development environment is set up correctly and you can start contributing to the project.

If you want to compile the app for yourself, you can also follow these guidelines, however you may not need Android Studio and it may be possible to build the app using the command line, out of the scope of this guide.

Danger

It may be tempting to skip some of these steps, but make sure you follow them to ensure that your development environment is set up correctly.

1. Download the Git version control system.

   Windows

   winget install --id Git.Git -e --source winget

   macOS

   Using Homebrew:

   brew install git

   Linux

   Using your package manager. For example, on Ubuntu:

   sudo apt install git

2. Download Android Studio.

   Windows

   winget install --id Google.AndroidStudio -e --source winget

   macOS

   From the official website.

   Linux

   Look for Android Studio in your package manager.

   Alternatively, from Flathub or the official website.

3. Download Deno.

   Please see the Deno Runtime Manual for installation guidance.

4. Clone the repository.

   git clone --recursive https://github.com/revoltchat/android.git

   Specify --recursive to ensure that submodules are cloned as well.

5. Open the project in Android Studio.

6. Install the required dependencies.

   • Android SDK, latest version
   • Android NDK, latest version

   You can install these from the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

7. Download required additional, embedded dependencies using the provided script.

   deno run -A scripts/download_deps.ts

8. Copy the revoltbuild.properties.example file to revoltbuild.properties and fill in the required values.

   cp revoltbuild.properties.example revoltbuild.properties

   The revoltbuild.properties file contains the following properties:

   Property	Description
   sentry.dsn	Sentry DSN for error reporting
   sentry.upload_mappings	Whether to upload obf. maps to Sentry
   build.debug.app_name	The name of the app in debug builds, arbitrary
   build.flavour_id	Leave as ZZUU

9. Copy the sentry.properties.example file to sentry.properties and fill in the required values.

   cp sentry.properties.example sentry.properties

   The sentry.properties file contains the following properties:

   Property	Description
   defaults.url	The URL of the Sentry instance
   defaults.project	The project ID in Sentry
   defaults.org	The organization ID in Sentry
   auth.token	The authentication token for Sentry, used to upload maps

   You can get these values from the Sentry dashboard.

10. Build the project.

    You can build the project by clicking on the ‘Run’ button in Android Studio.
    If asked, build the :app module.

11. You’re all set! You can now start contributing to Revolt on Android.