Run Google Antigravity CLI on Termux: Android PRoot Guide

Termux provides proot-distro to manage chroot-like Linux root filesystems without requiring device root privileges. Install it via pkg:

Deploy a minimal Ubuntu environment. This downloads the official ARM64 root filesystem:

Once the installation finishes, log into the Ubuntu rootfs:

Minimal container images do not ship with SSL certificates or download utilities. Update the package lists and install curl and ca-certificates before running the installer:

Then run Google’s official Antigravity CLI installation script:

The installer detects the Linux ARM64 kernel architecture and writes the binary to /root/.local/bin/agy.

Ensure the binary is discoverable in your interactive shell:

Verify that the binary executes cleanly under glibc:

Type exit when finished to return to the native Termux shell.

Opening the Ubuntu chroot manually every time you want to execute an agent command is tedious. You can create a transparent wrapper script directly in Termux’s native binary path ($PREFIX/bin/agy):

cat << 'EOF' > $PREFIX/bin/agy
#!/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/bash
exec proot-distro login ubuntu -- agy "$@"
EOF
chmod +x $PREFIX/bin/agy

Next, configure the Android browser bridge inside Ubuntu so OAuth links and web preview commands pop open automatically:

cat << 'EOF' > /usr/local/bin/xdg-open
#!/bin/sh
exec /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/termux-open-url "$@"
EOF
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/xdg-open

Test the bridge immediately:

xdg-open "https://malcolmlow.com/"

Your default Android mobile browser (such as Chrome) will pop open into the foreground instantly.

One of the biggest practical hurdles when running an autonomous AI pair programmer inside Android Termux is confirmation prompt fatigue. In a mobile environment, having the agent pause every few seconds to ask for manual CLI approval completely breaks the autonomous flow.

Three key configurations and architectural practices are absolute lifesavers for achieving a completely hands-off, prompt-free workflow:

{
  "enableTerminalSandbox": true,
  "toolPermission": "proceed-in-sandbox",
  "allowNonWorkspaceAccess": true,
  "trustedWorkspaces": [
    "/root"
  ]
}

Why does the binary fail on native Termux?

Android’s dynamic linker (Bionic) strictly validates Thread-Local Storage (TLS) alignment and ELF segment offsets. Binaries linked against GNU libc with modern toolchains frequently specify alignment boundaries that Bionic’s dynamic linker rejects on startup.

Why did Codex work without PRoot while Antigravity needed it?

Codex’s Termux package (@mmmbuto/codex-cli-termux) was specially compiled and packaged to link against Termux’s Bionic libc. Antigravity’s official distribution is compiled against GNU glibc for standard Linux distributions, making the PRoot environment necessary.

Why does Antigravity repeatedly prompt for confirmation in Termux, and how do I fix it?

Confirmation prompts appear when commands request sandbox bypass (e.g. BypassSandbox: true), use inline python3 -c executions, or run external bash commands to read files. You can silence these prompts completely by: (1) Enabling "enableTerminalSandbox": true and setting "toolPermission": "proceed-in-sandbox" in ~/.gemini/antigravity-cli/settings.json (or in Settings → Agent Settings & Permissions → Tool Execution Policy); (2) Instructing the agent to execute all Python code strictly inside the sandbox; and (3) Using the native in-process file reading skill (view_file) instead of terminal read commands. Native reading requires zero subprocess permissions and runs 100% silently.

How was this very article published?

This post was drafted in Termux, styled according to our publication guidelines, authenticated against the official WordPress.com MCP server, and published live directly via the WordPress REST API without opening a web admin dashboard.

What is the performance overhead of PRoot?

PRoot uses ptrace to intercept and emulate Linux system calls in userspace without requiring root. While I/O-heavy compiles can be 20–30% slower, CLI network calls, inference streaming, and code edits perform at near-native speeds on modern multi-core ARM chips.

How do I prevent Android from killing background tasks?

Android 12+ introduced the Phantom Process Killer, which aggressively terminates child processes that consume significant CPU or spawn background workers. Run termux-wake-lock in Termux before running extended agent sessions to prevent Android from putting Termux into deep sleep.

See this Termux + Antigravity CLI setup in action across competitive machine learning benchmarks on mobile hardware:

• Setup Guide: Running Google Antigravity CLI on Android with Termux PRoot.
• Part I: Training a 10-Fold Blended Ensemble on Titanic (Top 3%).
• Part II: Spaceship Titanic with Domain Deductions & CatBoost (Top 6%).
• Part III: House Prices Regression Baselines, Metric Alignment, and Ensembling (Top 19%).
• Part IV: Kaggle MNIST on Android: From Zero-Parameter Baselines to Subspace SVM (Top 47%).

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