@blotch/angular-lynx-native

Builds AngularLynx apps into iOS and Android binaries. You don't call it directly: ng build --platform ios|android|all (the @blotch/angular-lynx-build:application builder) loads it after building the Lynx bundle. It's a dependency of @blotch/angular-lynx-build, which ng add @blotch/angular-lynx installs.

User documentation: Publishing your App. The design and its reasoning: investigations/native-app-builds.md.

What it does

1. Generates the native project from templates/ios or templates/android into the project's folder in Angular's build cache (.angular/cache/<Angular version>/<project>/lynx-native/<platform>, which ng new already gitignores and ng cache clean clears), writing the app options from angular.json into the few files the templates mark for it. It regenerates only when a hash of its inputs changes (this package's version, the template, the options, the icon), so Xcode and Gradle keep their incremental state.
2. Copies dist/ (without the web bundle) into the project.
3. Builds it with xcodebuild or Gradle and copies the binaries to dist/<platform>/.

An ejected project (ios/ or android/ with a .angular-lynx-ejected marker, written by ng generate @blotch/angular-lynx:eject) is built as it is and never regenerated.

The shells

Both are one full-screen LynxView running main.lynx.bundle; Angular Router does all navigation inside it. Bundles and assets load from inside the app, so RSpeedy's default asset prefix (/static/...) works with no configuration. See templates/android/README.md for the Android shell's details.

| | iOS | Android | | ---------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- | | Language | Swift, scene lifecycle | Kotlin | | Lynx | 4.1.0, prebuilt XCFrameworks (below) | 4.1.0 AARs from Maven Central | | Toolchain | Xcode 27, iOS 15+ | AGP 9.4, Gradle 9.6, JDK 17+, SDK 36, minSdk 24 | | Generated config | Config/App.xcconfig, App/Info.plist markers | angular-lynx.properties, AndroidManifest.xml markers |

Lynx for iOS

Lynx publishes iOS only as source pods, which take minutes to compile and need CocoaPods (and so Ruby). scripts/build-lynx-ios-frameworks.sh compiles them once into XCFrameworks (about 24 MB zipped, with debug symbols in a separate zip). The builder downloads the zip pinned in src/ios/frameworks.ts (URL and SHA-256) on first use and caches it in ~/.cache/angular-lynx/lynx-ios/<version>.

The zip for Lynx 4.1.0 is the lynx-ios-4.1.0 release. For a new Lynx version, bump the versions in the script, run the Lynx iOS frameworks workflow with publish (or the script locally), and pin the new zip's URL and SHA-256. To test a locally built folder before publishing it:

npm run build:lynx-ios-frameworks -w packages/native   # needs Xcode, and Ruby >= 2.7 with Bundler for CocoaPods
export ANGULAR_LYNX_IOS_FRAMEWORKS=$PWD/packages/native/.lynx-ios-build/out/LynxFrameworks

Changing a template

• iOS: App/ is a synchronized folder, so adding or removing a Swift file needs no project change. For anything else (a build setting, a framework, a resource folder), edit APP_PROJECT in scripts/generate-ios-project.ts. App.xcodeproj isn't in git: the iosTemplateProject Vite plugin in vite.config.ts renders it with @bacons/xcode, which needs only Node, on every npm run build and npm test, and the npm package ships the result. Run npm run generate:ios-project -w packages/native to render it without the TypeScript build, e.g. to open the template in Xcode.
• Both: run npm run e2e -- --ios --shell (and Layer 6 for Android, see the E2E README) to build and tap through a fresh app on each platform.