Inertia Hotwire Native Demo (Android)

A minimal Android app demonstrating Hotwire Native driving an Inertia-powered web app. It wraps a server-rendered site in a native shell, adds native navigation/tabs, intercepts selected routes with native screens, and exposes native UI to the web layer through bridge components.

The app loads https://demo.inertia-native.dev by default.

Note

This project started as a copy of the official Hotwire Native Android demo and is currently almost identical to it, adapted to point at an Inertia-powered backend. See Credits.

Requirements

• Android Studio (latest stable)
• JDK 17
• Android Gradle Plugin 9.2.1 / Gradle 9.4.1 / Kotlin 2.2.0
• compileSdk 36, minSdk 28

Dependencies are managed with Gradle and resolve automatically on first build. The main dependencies are hotwire-native-android (core and navigation-fragments, pinned to 1.2.8) and Coil for image loading.

Running

1. Open the project in Android Studio.
2. Select the app run configuration and a device or emulator.
3. Build & Run (▶).

Or from the command line:

./gradlew :app:installDebug

Pointing at a local server

By default the app talks to the hosted demo. To run against a local Inertia/Rails server, edit Demo.kt and switch the environment:

val current: Environment = Environment.Local   // http://10.0.2.2:3000

10.0.2.2 is the Android emulator's alias for the host machine's localhost.

How it works

• DemoApplication.kt — configures Hotwire: loads the path configuration, registers fragment destinations and bridge components, and sets global options (JSON converter, user-agent prefix, debug logging).
• main/MainActivity.kt — sets up the HotwireActivity with a bottom tab bar and the navigator hosts.
• main/MainTabs.kt — defines the native bottom navigation tabs.
• assets/json/path-configuration.json — declarative rules: present /new, /edit, /modal as modals; render /numbers with a native fragment; open images in a native viewer; reset the stack at root. Merged with a server-hosted configuration at configurations/android_v1.json.
• features/numbers/NumbersFragment.kt — example of a fully native screen replacing a web route.
• bridge/ — bridge components that let the web page drive native UI:
  • FormComponent — native toolbar submit button wired to a web form.
  • MenuComponent / OverflowMenuComponent — native menus populated from the web.

Project structure

app/src/main/
├── AndroidManifest.xml
├── assets/json/
│   └── path-configuration.json          # Routing/presentation rules
├── kotlin/dev/inertia/demo/
│   ├── DemoApplication.kt               # Hotwire configuration
│   ├── Demo.kt                          # Base URL (remote/local switch)
│   ├── main/
│   │   ├── MainActivity.kt              # HotwireActivity + tabs
│   │   ├── MainActivityViewModel.kt
│   │   └── MainTabs.kt                  # Native tab definitions
│   ├── features/
│   │   ├── numbers/                     # Native screen for /numbers
│   │   ├── web/                         # Web fragment destinations
│   │   └── imageviewer/                 # Native image viewer
│   └── bridge/                          # Bridge components (web ↔ native)
│       ├── FormComponent.kt
│       ├── MenuComponent.kt
│       └── OverflowMenuComponent.kt
└── res/                                 # Layouts, drawables, themes

Credits

Based on the official Hotwire Native Android demo by Hotwire, also released under the MIT License. This repository adapts it to demonstrate an Inertia-powered backend.

License

Released under the MIT License.