Boost Your Android Development Productivity with Android Studio Narwhal 3 Feature Drop

Android Studio continues to evolve rapidly, delivering tools that empower developers to build high-quality apps faster and smarter. The latest Narwhal 3 Feature Drop, released on the stable channel, brings a compelling set of enhancements focused on AI-assisted development, app optimization, and responsive UI iteration.

With monthly releases now part of Android Studio’s new cadence, Google is accelerating innovation to get these productivity boosters into your hands quickly. Here’s a comprehensive overview of what’s new—and how you can leverage these features in your projects today.

AI Development Gets Smarter and More Context-Aware with Gemini

Google’s AI assistant for Android Studio, Gemini, continues to mature with valuable new capabilities designed to integrate seamlessly into your daily workflows.

Inject Project Knowledge via AGENTS.md

One powerful new addition is AGENTS.md, a Markdown file you place within your codebase to provide rich, project-specific context to Gemini. The file can include coding styles, architectural notes, or other instructions that Gemini will incorporate into its reasoning.

This means the entire team benefits by sharing consistent AI guidance that stays under version control. Place multiple AGENTS.md files in different directories for granular, modular context, making Gemini’s assistance more precise.

Attach Images and Files for Richer AI Interactions

Previously experimental features now reached stable status, significantly expanding how you converse with Gemini:

Image Attachment: Upload a design mock-up or screenshot directly in chat. Ask Gemini to translate a UI image into Jetpack Compose code, explain the existing UI structure, or even help debug visual bugs by highlighting problem areas.
@File Attachment: Reference specific project files by typing @ in the chat window, allowing Gemini to pull in the full file context to refine its responses. Gemini can also suggest relevant files automatically for your review.

These tools drastically expedite UI development, debugging, and architecture understanding, delivering like a virtual pair programmer who “sees” what you see.

Looking Ahead: Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Google is advancing Gemini’s interoperability with broader tools via MCP, enabling smoother integration with platforms like GitHub. Stay tuned for ongoing AI enhancements that leverage this new protocol for deeper, developer-friendly AI support.

Optimize Your App and Workflow

Beyond AI, this release focuses on tools that heighten product quality and streamline project maintenance:

Test App Backup & Restore End-to-End

With device replacements becoming frequent, ensuring reliable user data migration is critical. Android Studio now lets you generate backups of your app’s data and easily restore them on another device directly from the IDE. You can even configure backups in run configurations for ongoing development testing.

This tool empowers you to safeguard users’ data continuity and catch backup/restore bugs early.

Play Policy Insights: Build Compliance Into Your Code

To help you avoid Google Play policy pitfalls, Play Policy Insights appear as lint warnings in your code when you’re close to policy violations. These include explanations, best practices, and links to documentation right inside Android Studio.

Integrate these checks into your CI/CD pipelines for automated compliance monitoring and prevent costly rejections.

Proguard Inspection for Overly Broad Keep Rules

Overly broad Proguard keep rules can hinder code optimization. Android Studio now warns when your keep rules may be too general, enabling you to tighten them and improve app performance and size.

Improved Project Navigation and Sync Control

Build scripts shown within module folders: Organize complex multi-module projects more intuitively.
Manual project sync option: For large projects, avoid disruptive automatic Gradle syncs. Enable a manual mode where Android Studio reminds you of needed syncs but lets you run them on your schedule.

Faster UI Iteration with Resizable Compose Preview

Testing responsive designs just got easier. The Composable Preview now offers direct dynamic resizing in Focus Mode. Drag edges to watch your UI adapt in real time. You can even save a resized configuration as a new @Preview annotation with a single click.

This speeds up developing across devices and screen sizes and encourages experimentation.

Summary of Key Features in Narwhal 3

Area	Features
Develop with AI	AGENTS.md file support, stable image & file attachments for Gemini
Optimize & Refine	App backup/restore testing, Play policy linting, Proguard keep rule inspection, module build script visibility, manual Gradle sync mode
Faster UI Iteration	Resizable Compose Preview with Focus Mode resizing and save