Android to kmp

Migrating an Android App to KMP

Instructions

The goal is to share code without stopping feature delivery. Migrate bottom-up: pure logic first, frameworks last. UI usually stays Jetpack Compose on Android until commonMain is proven.

1. Add a :shared module to the existing project

// shared/build.gradle.kts
plugins {
    alias(libs.plugins.kotlinMultiplatform)
    alias(libs.plugins.androidLibrary)
}

kotlin {
    androidTarget()
    // Add iOS later — don't enable until there's an iOS consumer.
    sourceSets {
        commonMain.dependencies {
            implementation(libs.kotlinx.coroutines.core)
            implementation(libs.kotlinx.serialization.json)
        }
    }
}

android { namespace = "com.example.shared"; compileSdk = 35; defaultConfig.minSdk = 24 }

Add :shared to settings.gradle.kts and have :app depend on it. Existing Android code keeps running; :shared is just an extra module.

2. Start with a pure-Kotlin layer

Pick code that has no Android imports today: domain models, validation, pricing rules, date math. Move the files from :app to :shared/src/commonMain/kotlin/... unchanged. Confirm ./gradlew :app:assembleDebug still builds.

// was app/src/main/kotlin/com/example/pricing/Discount.kt
// now shared/src/commonMain/kotlin/com/example/pricing/Discount.kt
data class Discount(val code: String, val percent: Int) {
    fun apply(cents: Long): Long = cents - cents * percent / 100
}

3. Replace java.time / java.util.Date

commonMain cannot import java.*. Swap for kotlinx-datetime:

// before
val now: LocalDateTime = LocalDateTime.now(ZoneId.of("UTC"))
// after
val now: LocalDateTime = Clock.System.now().toLocalDateTime(TimeZone.UTC)

For JSON, replace Moshi/Gson with kotlinx.serialization:

@Serializable data class UserDto(val id: Long, val name: String)

4. Replace frameworks incrementally

Android library	KMP replacement
Retrofit + OkHttp	Ktor client (OkHttp engine on Android)
Room	SQLDelight
WorkManager	Keep on Android; expose a shared interface
SharedPreferences	Multiplatform-Settings or a KeyValueStore IF
Moshi / Gson	kotlinx.serialization
Coil	Coil 3 (KMP)

Where no KMP equivalent exists, define an interface in commonMain and keep the Android implementation in androidMain.

5. Migrate a repository

// commonMain — new
interface ArticleRepository {
    suspend fun latest(): List<Article>
    fun observeLatest(): Flow<List<Article>>
}

// commonMain — move the implementation here
class ArticleRepositoryImpl(
    private val api: ArticleApi,        // Ktor
    private val dao: ArticleDao,        // SQLDelight
) : ArticleRepository { /* … */ }

Replace the Retrofit interface + Room DAO usage inside the impl step by step. Keep the ViewModel on Android pointing at ArticleRepository the whole time.

6. Move ViewModels (optional, later)

Once androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel is on KMP (2.8+), ViewModels can live in commonMain:

class FeedViewModel(private val repo: ArticleRepository) : ViewModel() {
    val state = repo.observeLatest()
        .map { FeedState(it) }
        .stateIn(viewModelScope, SharingStarted.WhileSubscribed(5_000), FeedState())
}

On Android, keep using by viewModels(). Don't introduce iOS until you've validated the shared ViewModel on Android.

7. Adding iOS

Only when :shared builds cleanly for androidTarget() and all dependencies have iOS counterparts, add:

listOf(iosArm64(), iosSimulatorArm64()).forEach {
    it.binaries.framework { baseName = "Shared"; isStatic = true }
}
sourceSets.iosMain.dependencies { implementation(libs.ktor.client.darwin) }

Generate the XCFramework, consume from a new Xcode project, and build the iOS UI afresh.

8. Anti-patterns

• Don't move Compose screens to commonMain before the domain/data layers are stable there.
• Don't ship a partial migration where the same logic exists in both :app and :shared.
• Don't enable iOS targets just to "see if it works" — every unnecessary target multiplies CI time.

Checklist

• :shared is Android-only until an iOS consumer exists.
• No java.* / android.* imports in commonMain.
• Each migrated file has been deleted from :app (no duplicates).
• Android app still builds and tests pass after every migration step.
• kotlinx-datetime, kotlinx.serialization, Ktor, SQLDelight chosen as replacements.
• ViewModels moved only after the underlying repositories are in commonMain.