rea/docs/apktool-resource-analysis.md

Apktool resource decoding

REA decodes Android resource tables and the binary manifest through the caller's Apktool launcher. This completes the static triad for Android targets: Java/Kotlin sources through the JADX family, engine-grade decompilation through JEB, and resources through this family. REA never installs Apktool or a Java runtime.

Supply tools

Use Apktool 2.7.0 or newer (verified with 2.7.0) and a Java runtime the launcher can find. Select the launcher through the environment:

# Optional: absolute path to the apktool launcher (upstream wrapper or a
# java -jar script); without it, apktool resolves from PATH.
export REA_APKTOOL_COMMAND=/absolute/path/apktool

Readiness is rea inspect-apktool-client: it runs apktool --version and reports the resolved launcher, its selection source, and its version. A missing launcher reports capability_unavailable with the REA_APKTOOL_COMMAND remediation rather than attempting an installation.

On Windows, a .bat or .cmd launcher (such as Chocolatey's apktool.bat) runs through an explicit cmd.exe /d /s /c call. That call has no AutoRun, no delayed expansion, and quotes every argument. A launcher path that contains ", %, ^, !, &, |, < or > is reported as not_configured instead of being passed to cmd.exe. If REA's temporary decode paths contain those characters, decoding through a batch launcher reports capability_unavailable.

Answer an analyst question

rea inspect-apktool-client
rea decode-android-resources /targets/Example.apk
rea decode-android-resources /targets/Example.apk --locale de
rea decode-android-resources /targets/Example.apk --no-strings

Equivalent MCP methods are inspect_apktool_client and decode_android_resources. The decode request takes path, an optional locale (project res/values-<locale>/strings.xml instead of the default table), and include_strings (default true). Regional locales such as pt-BR select Android's values-pt-rBR; Android qualifiers such as pt-rBR and b+zh+Hans+CN may also be supplied directly.

Interpret the result

• An owned APK snapshot is digested and decoded. target.sha256 and target.bytes bind the observation to the exact APK that was decoded.
• Metadata comes from apktool.yml as apktool printed it. Version codes keep their own spelling ('7' versus 7); package_name is read from the decoded manifest, not inferred.
• The manifest is the decoded text, bounded at 512 KiB and reported as truncated when larger.
• Strings are projected verbatim. Escaped entities stay escaped, and entries containing nested markup (<b>, <xliff:g>) are counted as unparsed rather than flattened — the limitation names the count. The default table is bounded to 2000 entries with partial coverage when more exist; locales lists every values-<locale> that has a strings table.
• Smali is skipped by design (apktool d --no-src): Java-source recovery belongs to the JADX family. Resource smali edits and rebuild are a follow-up lane with mutation authority.
• Workspaces are owned and short-lived. Decoding happens in a provider-owned temporary directory that is removed before the result is returned. The APK snapshot and framework cache both live inside this directory. If removal fails, the result names the residual path and the provider retains ownership for a cleanup retry on close, including failed decodes.

Resource and lifecycle limits

• The decode runs with a 600 s deadline and a 4 MiB output capture budget; a stopped decode reports provider_timeout and exceeded budgets report resource_constraint.
• Manifest reads are bounded to 512 KiB before decoding UTF-8. Strings XML reads are bounded to 8 MiB; larger documents are skipped with partial coverage and an explicit limit, rather than reported as missing.
• decoded_file_count is capped at 100,000 files; the cap is reported in the limitations when hit.
• Apktool's own decode failures (AndrolibException, directory traversal refusals) surface as unsupported_target with apktool's reason preserved verbatim.

Real verification

npm run verify:apktool -- --apk PATH exercises both operations against a real launcher. Record: apktool 2.7.0-dirty (Debian packaging) on Linux with OpenJDK 25 against a signed aapt2-built probe APK carrying two resource locales — launcher version, on-disk digest agreement, apktool.yml metadata (1.2.3, SDK 24–34), manifest package agreement, default and de string tables projected. Parser goldens in the test suite come from the same decode. See docs/testing.md for the lane summary.