jetstart android-emulator

Interactive Android Virtual Device (AVD) management — create, start, stop, and delete emulators without Android Studio. Fully integrated with jetstart dev --emulator for automated deployment.

Usage

jetstart android-emulator

No options — interactive menu-driven interface.

Quick Start

# Launch interactive manager
jetstart android-emulator

# Follow prompts to:
# - List existing emulators
# - Start/stop emulators
# - Create new emulators
# - Delete emulators

Interactive Menu

Main Menu

JetStart Android Emulator Manager

What would you like to do?
❯ List existing emulators
  Start emulator
  Stop emulator
  ─────────────────────────
  Create JetStart-optimized emulator
  Create custom emulator
  Delete emulator
  ─────────────────────────
  Exit

Navigation

• Arrow keys: Move selection
• Enter: Confirm choice
• Ctrl+C: Exit anytime

Operations

1. List Existing Emulators

Shows all AVDs with running status:

Available Android Virtual Devices:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

  ✓ JetStart-Pixel5-API34 (Running)
    - Device: Pixel 5
    - Target: Android 14 (API 34)
    - Based on: Android 14.0 x86_64

  ○ my-test-emulator
    - Device: Pixel 6
    - Target: Android 13 (API 33)

Status icons:

• ✓ Green = Running
• ○ Gray = Stopped

If no emulators are found, you'll be prompted to create a JetStart-optimized one.

2. Start Emulator

Select from stopped emulators:

Select emulator to start:
❯ JetStart-Pixel5-API34 (Android 14)
  my-test-emulator (Android 13)

The emulator launches in the background and boots. This may take 20–60 seconds.

3. Stop Emulator

Select from running emulators:

Select emulator to stop:
❯ JetStart-Pixel5-API34 (Android 14)

Uses adb emu kill for a graceful shutdown.

4. Create JetStart-Optimized Emulator

One-click creation with fixed settings:

Setting	Value
Name	JetStart-Pixel5-API34
Device	Pixel 5
API Level	34 (Android 14)
ABI	x86_64 (Intel/AMD) or arm64-v8a (ARM) — auto-detected

If the system image isn't installed, it will be downloaded automatically via sdkmanager.

If the AVD already exists, the creation is skipped.

5. Create Custom Emulator

Wizard-style creation with four prompts:

Step 1: AVD Name

? Enter AVD name: my-test-emulator

Names can contain letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores.

Step 2: Device Profile

? Select device profile:
❯ Pixel 5
  Pixel 6
  Pixel 8
  Nexus 5

Step 3: API Level

? Select API level:
❯ API 34 (Android 14) - Recommended
  API 33 (Android 13)
  API 31 (Android 12)
  API 29 (Android 10)
  API 24 (Android 7.0) - Minimum

Step 4: ABI (Architecture)

? Select ABI (architecture):
❯ x86_64 (Intel/AMD 64-bit)
  arm64-v8a (ARM 64-bit)

Auto-defaults to arm64-v8a on ARM machines (e.g. Apple M1/M2) and x86_64 otherwise.

Step 5: Automated Installation If the selected system image isn't installed, JetStart downloads it automatically via sdkmanager before creating the AVD:

✕ System image not installed
✕ Installing system image: system-images;android-33;google_apis;x86_64
✓ SDK licenses accepted
✓ system-images;android-33;google_apis;x86_64 installed
✓ AVD "my-test-emulator" created successfully

6. Delete Emulator

Select and confirm:

? Select emulator to delete: my-test-emulator (Google APIs (Google Inc.))
? Are you sure you want to delete "my-test-emulator"? Yes
✓ AVD "my-test-emulator" deleted

Deletion requires confirmation.

Integration with Dev Command

Automatic Deployment

jetstart dev --emulator

Flow:

1. Detects a running emulator
2. Triggers initial APK build
3. Installs APK via ADB
4. Launches app
5. Future file changes use hot reload

Specify Emulator by Name

jetstart dev --emulator --avd JetStart-Pixel5-API34

Skips selection, directly targets the specified AVD.

System Images

Architecture Selection

ABI	Best for	Notes
x86_64	Intel/AMD processors	Fastest, requires hardware acceleration
arm64-v8a	ARM Macs (M1/M2/M3)	Native performance on ARM

System images are downloaded as system-images;android-{apiLevel};google_apis;{abi} via sdkmanager.

Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration is required for usable emulator performance.

Platform	Technology
Windows (Intel)	HAXM
Windows (AMD)	WHPX (Windows Hypervisor Platform)
macOS (Intel)	Hypervisor Framework (built-in)
macOS (ARM M1/M2)	Native virtualization
Linux	KVM

Enable on Windows

# For AMD / Hyper-V compatible systems
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName HypervisorPlatform

Enable on Linux

sudo apt install qemu-kvm
sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER
# Log out and back in

Troubleshooting

Emulator Won't Start

1. Check hardware acceleration:

   emulator -accel-check

2. Enable VT-x / AMD-V in BIOS — restart, enter BIOS (F2/Del), enable virtualization
3. Conflicting hypervisors — cannot run HAXM + VirtualBox + Hyper-V simultaneously

ADB Connection Issues

# Restart ADB
adb kill-server
adb start-server

# Verify device is listed
adb devices
# Should show: emulator-5554  device

Black Screen

Try changing GPU mode:

emulator -avd JetStart-Pixel5-API34 -gpu swiftshader_indirect

Best Practices

1. Use JetStart-optimized emulator for development — pre-configured for best results
2. Use x86_64 when possible — fastest emulation on Intel/AMD
3. Keep system images updated — sdkmanager --update
4. Clean up unused emulators — saves disk space

Related Commands

• jetstart dev — uses --emulator flag for auto-deployment
• jetstart install-audit — checks emulator installation

See Also

• Working with Emulators — detailed guide
• System Requirements — hardware requirements
• Android SDK Issues — troubleshooting