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Android emulator support is in early access as of Orka 3.7.0-alpha. Apple silicon nodes only. Commands, defaults, and behavior may change before general availability. For a full conceptual overview, connection steps, and known limitations, see Android emulators on Orka.

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Understanding Orka emulators

An Orka emulator is an Android emulator (AVD) that runs on the same physical host node as a macOS VM, reachable from inside that VM over an ADB relay bridge. Emulators are Apple silicon only: Apple silicon does not support nested virtualization, so the emulator runs as a host-level process rather than inside the VM. An emulator’s lifecycle is tied to its parent VM: deleting the VM automatically cleans up its emulator(s). You can also delete an emulator manually before deleting the parent VM.

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Emulator commands

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orka3 emulator deploy

Deploy an Android emulator attached to a running macOS VM. The parent VM must already be Running. Platform, device profile, and image type values pass straight through to the Android SDK’s avdmanager and sdkmanager tooling, so any combination those tools support works on a best-effort basis. The only hard constraint is architecture: only platforms with an ARM-native system image are supported, since the emulator runs directly on the Apple silicon host.
Deploying an emulator blocks until it reaches Running or Failed, or until the timeout elapses, whichever comes first. A timeout is not necessarily a failure: the emulator may still be Pending while its AVD boots. Run orka3 emulator list to poll status.
Syntax:
Options:
Commonly used values:
  • Platforms: android-35, android-36
  • Device profiles: pixel_8, pixel_9, pixel_tablet
  • Image types: google_apis, google_apis_playstore, default
Examples:
The response includes adbRelayIP and adbRelayPort. Always use these values to connect over ADB rather than a hardcoded IP or port; see Android emulators on Orka for connection steps.
First deploy on a node may be slower than later ones: Android SDK components (roughly 2 to 4 GB per platform and image type pair) download at deploy time if not already cached on the host node. There is no pre-caching in early access.

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orka3 emulator list

List Android emulators. Syntax:
Options:
Examples:
Use this to poll emulator status (Pending, Running, or Failed) after a deploy call times out. When phase is Failed, the response includes an errorMessage explaining why.

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orka3 emulator delete

Delete an Android emulator.
Manual delete is only needed to remove an emulator before its parent VM is deleted. Deleting the VM cleans up its emulator(s) automatically.
Syntax:
Options:
Examples:

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Known limitations

Early access scope, node-level network isolation, NAT-only networking, and other current limitations are covered in Android emulators on Orka.

Related topics

Manage macOS VM images with the Orka3 CLIAndroid emulators on Orka (Early Access)Android virtual devicesOrka Release NotesMacStadium VDI business outcomes and use cases