Add Android SDK to `macos-13-xlarge`

[martinbonnin]

Tool name

Android SDK

Tool license

Android SDK license

Add or update?

• Add
• Update

Desired version

Same as https://github.com/actions/runner-images/blob/main/images/macos/macos-13-Readme.md#android

Approximate size

No response

Brief description of tool

Can the Android SDK be installed in the M1 macOS images (macos-13-xlarge) ?

The MacOS 13 page says it should be supported but it is not (see this workflow run)

URL for tool's homepage

https://developer.android.com/studio

Provide a basic test case to validate the tool's functionality.

No response

Platforms where you need the tool

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions

Runner images where you need the tool

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Ubuntu 22.04
• macOS 11
• macOS 12
• macOS 13
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022

Can this tool be installed during the build?

Yes. I can provide steps if needed but given that the Android SDK is already installed in other machines, it's probably easier to reuse this

Tool installation time in runtime

No response

Are you willing to submit a PR?

No response

[ilia-shipitsin]

there's hardware limitation https://docs.github.com/en/actions/using-github-hosted-runners/about-larger-runners/about-larger-runners#limitations-for-macos-larger-runners

Due to a limitation of Apple's Virtualization Framework, which our hypervisor uses, nested-virtualization is not supported by arm64 runners.

I'm afraid, android sdk without simulators is not very useful

[martinbonnin]

I'm afraid, android sdk without simulators is not very useful

I would use it :). The project I'm working on has very little Android dependencies but we still need an Android SDK to compile the libs.
We have a few benchmarks that require an Android device and we're using Firebase test labs for those to get consistent number.

So all in all, Android SDK without simulators is still useful.

[ilia-shipitsin]

as far as I understand, it will be "build only" mode, which already available on MacOS intel runners. am I missing something ?

[martinbonnin]

I'd like to use the M1 runners for:

• hopefully faster compile times
• run macosArm64 tests on the same image

We could shard our CI to build/run different architectures on different images but it'd be very convenient to do everything from the same M1 image (and also sharding wouldn't address the build time issue).

[ilia-shipitsin]

I'm afraid that it will give false promise to other customers, if they see SDK, they assume simulators work.
Also, maintaining semi-working solution is not the best thing one can imagine.

we discussed internally and decided not to step further now. sorry for that.

[ilia-shipitsin]

@martinbonnin , we've changed our mind. we'll add android SDK.

small question. android SDK takes a lot of space on HDD. will it be enough to include only 32 ?

[martinbonnin]

Latest version is 34 so I would recommend adding this one and the previous one (33) at a minimum.

That gives developers 1 year to upgrade their apps to the latest version which sounds acceptable if HDD space is scarce?

Adding only the latest SDK would be problematic as all the builds would start failing whenever there is a version bump.