zeroclaw-android

First confirmed native zeroclaw build on Android/Termux.
No proot. No emulation. No compromise. Pure aarch64.

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What This Is

This repo documents and delivers the first successful compilation of zeroclaw on Android using Termux — built natively on aarch64-unknown-linux-android, without any Linux container, proot environment, or cross-compilation trickery.

The binary runs directly in Termux. That's it. That's the flex.

Build completed: Wed Feb 25 04:11:47 CST 2026
Device arch: aarch64
Kernel: Linux 5.4.284-moto
Node: v24.13.0 | Rust/Cargo: via Termux
Build time: 23m 55s
Binary size: 15.5MB

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Why It Was Hard

Three things conspire against you on Termux:

1. The linker is a memory hog. Android kills processes that spike RAM during the final link stage. zeroclaw's dependency tree is large enough to trigger this reliably.
2. make -j without a number dies. Termux's make is stricter than desktop GNU make — koffi's build script passes -j bare, which errors out on aarch64-unknown-linux-android.
3. No swap. Android blocks swapon for unprivileged processes, so you can't just throw a swapfile at the RAM problem the normal way.

The fix wasn't one thing — it was three things at once.

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Prerequisites

pkg update && pkg upgrade
pkg install clang cmake make python nodejs-lts rust binutils-cross mold git

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Build Instructions

1. Clone zeroclaw

git clone https://github.com/zeroclaw-labs/zeroclaw.git
cd zeroclaw

2. Create the cargo config

This is the critical step. Create .cargo/config.toml inside the zeroclaw directory:

mkdir -p .cargo && cat > .cargo/config.toml << 'EOF'
[target.aarch64-linux-android]
linker = "clang"
rustflags = ["-C", "link-arg=-fuse-ld=mold"]

[profile.release]
codegen-units = 1
opt-level = "z"
lto = "thin"
EOF

What each flag does:

• mold — replaces the default linker with one that uses a fraction of the RAM
• codegen-units = 1 — serializes compilation, reduces peak memory usage
• opt-level = "z" — optimize for size, not speed (lighter on RAM during compile)
• lto = "thin" — link-time optimization without the full memory cost of lto = true

3. Build

cargo build --release 2>&1 | tee build_log.txt

Drop --locked if you hit dependency resolution errors. Watch the output — it will compile 412 crates and take 20-30 minutes on most Android hardware. The last step (linking zeroclaw itself) is the longest and will appear to hang. It is not hung. Let it finish.

4. Confirm

date && ls -la target/release/zeroclaw
./target/release/zeroclaw --version

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Prebuilt Binary

A prebuilt binary for aarch64-android is included in this repo at bin/zeroclaw.

chmod +x bin/zeroclaw
./bin/zeroclaw --version

Built on a Motorola device running kernel 5.4.284-moto. Should run on any aarch64 Android device with Termux.

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What Failed Before This Worked

In the interest of saving you the same pain:

• npm install -g openclaw — fails because koffi passes make -j with no number; Termux make rejects it
• cargo build --release --locked without the cargo config — terminal crashes during link step (OOM)
• swapon — blocked by Android for unprivileged users, don't bother
• wait <pid> to monitor the build — also kills the terminal on some Android versions
• Gemini CLI — tried. Failed.
• Gemini Android app — tried. Failed.

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License

MIT — see LICENSE

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Lore

See LORE.md. There's something hidden in there. Find it.

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Built by @BleakNarratives with an assist from Claude.
If this helped you, star the repo. If it didn't work, open an issue.

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