Amper - a project configuration and build tool with a focus on the user experience and the IDE support
APACHE-2.0 License
Amper is a tool for project configuration. Its goal is to improve the project configuration experience and toolability, that is, the support inside the IDE, while also providing a smooth out-of-the box experience. We believe that this can be achieved by:
In essence, we aim to achieve a similar well-thought-out and well-tested experience as with JetBrains IDEs.
We’re currently looking at various aspects, including the configuration of projects for the purpose of building, packaging, publishing, and more. At its current stage, however, the focus is primarily on configuring projects for the purpose of building.
While the current use case is Kotlin and Kotlin Multiplatform, Amper also supports Java and Swift (as a requirement for multiplatform). However, the same approach to configuration could work for other languages and technology stacks in the future.
Amper is implemented as a Gradle plugin and uses YAML for its project configuration format. The goal right now is to validate the user experience, which is why we have chosen to build on a well-tested build tool like Gradle, providing a configuration layer on top of it.
Supported features:
Planned features:
For a quick start:
Amper uses YouTrack for issue tracking, create a new issue there to report problems or submit ideas.
Before reporting an issue, please check the FAQ and the list of known issues.
You can also join the Slack channel for discussions, or share your feedback using the feedback form.
There are multiple ways to try Amper:
Here is a very basic JVM "Hello, World!" project:
The main.kt
and MyTest.kt
files are just regular Kotlin files with nothing special in them. The interesting part is module.yaml
, which is the Amper manifest file. For the above project structure, it would simply be:
# Produce a JVM application
product: jvm/app
That's it. The Kotlin and Java toolchains, test framework, and other necessary functionality is configured and available straight out of the box. You can build it, run it, write and run tests, and more. For more detailed information, check out the full example.
Now, let's look at a Compose Multiplatform project with Android, iOS, and desktop JVM apps, with the following project structure in Fleet:
Notice how the src/
folder contains Kotlin and Swift code together. It could, of course, also be Kotlin and Java.
Another aspect to highlight is the shared module with the common code in the src
folder and the platform-specific code folders src@ios
and src@android
(learn more about project layout).
Here is how ios-app/module.yaml
manifest file looks:
# Produce an iOS application
product: ios/app
# Depend on the shared library module:
dependencies:
- ../shared
settings:
# Enable Compose Multiplatform framework
compose: enabled
This is pretty straightforward: It defines an iOS application with a dependency on a shared module and enables the Compose Multiplatform framework. A more interesting example would be shared/module.yaml
:
# Produce a shared library for the JVM, Android, and iOS platforms:
product:
type: lib
platforms: [jvm, android, iosArm64, iosSimulatorArm64, iosX64]
# Shared Compose dependencies:
dependencies:
- $compose.foundation: exported
- $compose.material3: exported
# Android-only dependencies
dependencies@android:
# integration compose with activities
- androidx.activity:activity-compose:1.7.2: exported
- androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.6.1: exported
# iOS-only dependencies with a dependency on a CocoaPod
# note that CocoaPods dependencies are not yet implemented in the prototype
dependencies@ios:
- pod: 'Alamofire'
version: '~> 2.0.1'
settings:
# Enable Kotlin serialization
kotlin:
serialization: json
# Enable Compose Multiplatform framework
compose: enabled
A couple of things are worth mentioning. First, note the platform-specific dependencies: sections with the @<platform>
qualifier. The platform qualifier can be used both in the manifest and also in the file layout. The qualifier organizes the code, dependencies, and settings for a certain platform.
Second, the dependencies: section allows not only Kotlin and Maven dependencies, but also platform-specific package managers, such as CocoaPods, Swift Package Manager, and others.
Naturally, these examples show only a limited set of Amper features. Look at the documentation, tutorial, and example projects to get more insight into Amper’s design and functionality.
Check our more real world examples: