We’re running a beta of a rebuilt Android build agent, and we’d like people to try it.
The base image has been replaced from the ground up. It’s now built directly on Ubuntu 26.04 with the toolchain versions pinned explicitly, rather than layered on top of a third-party Android SDK image. That means we control which Gradle, which Kotlin, and which JDK your build gets, instead of inheriting whatever the base image happened to ship.
What’s in it
- JDK 8, 11, 17 and 21, selected automatically for your cordova-android version
- Gradle 8.14.5, with 6.5, 7.1.1, 7.4.2, 7.6, 8.7, 8.13, 8.14.2 and 8.14.3 also cached — whichever version your project’s Gradle wrapper asks for is already on the machine
- Kotlin 2.4.20
- Node 24, npm 12.2.0, Cordova 13
- Android build-tools 30.0.3 through 36.1.0, platforms android-29 through android-36.1
- Supports cordova-android 9 through 15, and Capacitor
The image is built by running a real build for every supported cordova-android version and for Capacitor, so the npm and Gradle caches are warm before your build starts.
Two things worth knowing
git is now installed in the image, so plugins referenced by a git URL should install correctly.
npm 12 tightened its defaults around git dependencies and install scripts, which broke some plugins. The image restores the previous behaviour, so plugins that install from git or run install scripts work as they did before.
How to take part
Email support@volt.build and ask for beta access. If you already have it — or you’re in our beta program — just check the beta agent box on the upload page.
What we’d like to know
- Builds that worked before and fail now
- Builds that failed before and now succeed
- Plugin installs, especially from git URLs or with postinstall scripts
- Build times, better or worse
We expect to run this until around October 20th, sooner if nothing turns up. There’s more detail in the changelog entry. Let us know if you hit anything odd. Thank you, and happy building!