GitHub - ghorbelhamdi/buddy-android: Android AI assistant in a floating bubble: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini (Antigravity CLI) or Grok use your phone for you — read the screen, tap, type. Runs on your own plan, open source, no root, no adb, no PC.
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Android AI assistant in a floating bubble: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Gemini (Antigravity CLI) or Grok use your phone for you — read the screen, tap, type. Runs on your own plan, open source, no...

I’ve been building Buddy, a free, open source (Apache 2.0) Android app. You type or say what you want in a floating bubble, and an AI agent reads the screen, taps and types through your apps to do it.

  • Your choice of agent: Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Antigravity or Grok, running inside the app (Alpine Linux via proot) on your own plan. OpenCode’s free models need no account.
  • No root, adb or PC: it reads the screen and taps through the accessibility service.
  • Asks first: before anything is sent, posted, bought or deleted. It pauses when you touch the screen and never types passwords or payment details.
  • Builds apps: with Linux tools on, it builds real APKs on the phone. This week I drew a maze on a paper towel, took a photo, and it made it a tilt game. The first build crashed on launch; it found the bug and fixed it.

To be upfront:

  • What the agent reads on your screen goes to the AI service you pick.
  • It’s early (2.2), tested most on a OnePlus 12 with Android 16.
  • It’s not on Play (Google rejected the accessibility use), so it’s an APK from GitHub releases, built by GitHub Actions from the source.

Source and releases: github.com/ghorbelhamdi/buddy-android

Happy to answer questions here.

  • limerod@reddthat.comMEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    It’s not on Play (Google rejected the accessibility use), so it’s an APK from GitHub releases, built by GitHub Actions from the source.

    Did you explain its use as an accessibility aid being its core feature for differently abled people? If you have explained that as a core feature google could’ve budged. You would’ve needed to limit the API to select few like OpenAI, Gemini, Claude with additional guardrails and use reporting. But, it could’ve been accepted by google.

    • ghorbelhamdi@lemdro.idOPEnglish
      2·
      20 hours ago

      I did appeal. Google’s answer, word for word: “the app utilizes the accessibility API for performing autonomous actions… The accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for performing autonomous tasks.” So the problem was the agent acting on its own, not which AI services it uses.

      The accessibility-tool exception is only for apps built mainly for people with disabilities. Buddy can help there, but it does a lot more, so claiming that wouldn’t be honest. If anyone has gotten an agent app like this through review, I’m open to trying again.