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Onyx Mobile — Getting Started (Environment Setup)

mobile/GETTING_STARTED.md

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Onyx Mobile — Getting Started (Environment Setup)

One-time setup of the platform tools needed to build Onyx on a Mac. This doc is setup only — once the tools below are installed, see README.md to install deps and run the app.

macOS only (iOS needs Xcode). The JDK and NDK are Android-only — iOS uses neither.

iOS

  1. Install Xcode from the Mac App Store, then open it once so it finishes installing its components.
  2. Add a simulator: Xcode → Settings → Platforms → iOS Simulator → ＋ Add Additional Simulators to download a runtime, then Window → Devices and Simulators → Simulators → ＋ to create one (the default iPhone is usually fine).
  3. RN's iOS build also needs CocoaPods — install it if it isn't already (brew install cocoapods).

Android

Android Studio's first run installs the base SDK, and the build auto-downloads the rest it needs (platform, build-tools, CMake) the first time you build. You only install four things by hand — a JDK, Android Studio, the NDK, and an emulator.

1. JDK 17 — install Eclipse Temurin 17:

bash
brew install --cask temurin@17    # or grab the .pkg installer from https://adoptium.net

Why Temurin? It's the standard, free, vendor-neutral OpenJDK 17 build (Eclipse Adoptium) — no account or license click-through. But any JDK 17 distribution is fine (Zulu, Amazon Corretto, Microsoft, or Homebrew's openjdk@17) — they're interchangeable; the build only cares that it's version 17.

Why it's a separate step: this is the one piece the build can't fetch for you, and Android Studio's bundled JDK is 21 — which the build rejects. So install 17 yourself. (The build uses it via JAVA_HOME; see README.md's run steps.)

2. Android Studio — download from developer.android.com/studio and run the installer. Open it once and complete the setup wizard (it installs the SDK to ~/Library/Android/sdk).

3. NDK — the exact version — Android Studio → Settings → Languages & Frameworks → Android SDK → SDK Tools tab → tick "Show Package Details" (bottom-right) → under NDK (Side by side) check the exact version the build pins, currently 27.1.12297006 → Apply.

Use Show Package Details and pick the exact version — the plain "NDK (Side by side)" checkbox installs the latest, which won't satisfy the build. (The required version is printed in the build log's ExpoRootProject → ndk: line and tracks the Expo SDK.)

4. Create an emulator (AVD) — Android Studio Welcome screen → More Actions → Virtual Device Manager (or View → Tool Windows → Device Manager inside a project):

  1. Create Device → pick a recent Pixel → Next.
  2. System Image → click the ⬇ next to a recent Android version to download it → select it → Next.
  3. Verify Configuration → Finish, then launch it with ▶.

✅ Tools installed. Next → README.md to install deps and run the app on the simulator / emulator.

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