Magisk

Building and Development

Setup Environment

• Supported platforms:
  • Linux x64
  • macOS x64 (Intel)
  • macOS arm64 (Apple Silicon)
  • Windows x64
• Windows only: Enable developer mode. This is required because we need symbolic link support.
• Install Python 3.8+:
  • On Unix, install python3 using your favorite package manager
  • On Windows, download and install the latest Python version on the official website.
    Make sure to select “Add Python to PATH” during installation.
  • (Optional on Windows): Run pip install colorama to install the colorama python package
• Install Git:
  • On Unix, install git with your favorite package manager
  • On Windows, download and install the latest Git version on the official website.
    Make sure to “Enable symbolic links” during installation.
• Install Android Studio and follow the instructions and go through the initial setup.
• Set environment variable ANDROID_HOME to the Android SDK folder. This path can be found in Android Studio settings.
• Setup JDK:
  • The recommended option is to set environment variable ANDROID_STUDIO to the path where your Android Studio is installed. The build script will automatically find and use the bundled JDK.
  • You can also setup JDK 25 yourself, but this guide will not cover the instructions.
• Clone sources: git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk.git
• Run ./build.py ndk to let the script download and install NDK for you

Building

• To build everything and create the final Magisk APK, run ./build.py all.
• You can also build specific sub-components; call ./build.py -h to see all available actions.
  For each action, use -h to access help (e.g. ./build.py native -h).
• Configure the build by using config.prop. A sample config.prop.sample is provided.
• If sccache or ccache is installed and available in your PATH, build.py will automatically use it to speed up C++ and Rust builds.
• To run standalone tools (such as ./gradlew, cargo, or ndk-build) with the same environment variables configured by build.py, prefix the command with scripts/env.py (e.g. scripts/env.py ./gradlew :apk:assembleDebug). You can also run ./build.py clippy to lint Rust code or ./build.py cargo ... to invoke Cargo directly against the native workspace.

IDE Support

• Kotlin, Java, C++, and C code in the project should be supported in Android Studio out of the box. This repository can be directly opened with Android Studio as a project.
• For Rust development, see the next section.
• Before working on any native code, run ./build.py gen (or build all native code with ./build.py native), which generates build flags, C++/Rust FFI bindings, protobuf sources, and native/compile_commands.json for C/C++ language servers.

Developing Rust

First, install rustup, the official Rust toolchain manager. The Magisk NDK package ONDK (the one installed with ./build.py ndk) bundles a complete Rust toolchain, so building the Magisk project itself does not require any further configuration.

However, if you’d like to work on the Rust codebase, it’ll be easier if you link ONDK’s Rust toolchain in rustup and set it as default so several development tools and IDEs will work properly:

# Link the ONDK toolchain with the name "magisk"
rustup toolchain link magisk "$ANDROID_HOME/ndk/magisk/toolchains/rust"
# Set magisk as default
rustup default magisk

If you plan to use VSCode, you can then install the rust-analyzer plugin and everything should be good to go. If you plan to use Jetbrain IDEs (e.g. Rustrover, or its Rust Plugin), we need some additional setup:

• Install the official nightly toolchain and add some components. We won’t actually use the nightly toolchain for anything other than tricking the IDE to cooperate; the magic happens in the wrapper we setup in the next step.

rustup toolchain install nightly
# Add some components that are also included in ONDK
rustup +nightly component add rust-src clippy

• Create a wrapper cargo bin directory to workaround rustup limitations

# We choose ~/.cargo/wrapper here as an example (and a good recommendation)
# Pick any path you like, you just need to use this path in the next step
./build.py rustup ~/.cargo/wrapper

• In Settings > Rust > Toolchain location, set this to the path of the wrapper directory we just created.
• The IDE should now be fully functional, and you are able to enable rustfmt and use Clippy as the external linter.

Signing and Distribution

• In release builds, the certificate of the key signing the Magisk APK will be used by Magisk’s root daemon as a reference to reject and forcefully uninstall any non-matching Magisk apps to protect users from malicious and unverified Magisk APKs.
• To do any development on Magisk itself, switch to an official debug build and reinstall Magisk to turn off the signature check.
• To distribute your own Magisk builds signed with your own keys, set your signing configs in config.prop.
• Check Google’s Documentation for more details on generating your own key.

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