Android workload not recognized on Windows

[viniciusjarina]

Android framework version

net10.0-android (Preview)

Affected platform version

.NET 10.0.100-preview.3.25201.16

Description

I bumped .NET SDK to preview 3 on my CI 10.0.100-preview.3.25201.16

When I try to build an Android library it complains:

##[error]C:\hostedtoolcache\windows\dotnet\sdk\10.0.100-preview.3.25201.16\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Sdk.ImportWorkloads.targets(38,5): Error NETSDK1147: To build this project, the following workloads must be installed: android-net8

Then I added dotnet workload install android-net8

And workload install doesn't recognize android-net8.

Workload installation failed: Workload ID android-net8 is not recognized.

Is there any reason why add a totally new workload instead of simply update the android workload ?

Steps to Reproduce

Build an Android project on Windows with .NET 10 preview 3

Did you find any workaround?

Use .NET 9

Relevant log output

[jpobst]

What TargetFramework are you trying to build?

[viniciusjarina]

What TargetFramework are you trying to build?

<TargetFramework>net8.0-android</TargetFramework>

[jpobst]

The "official" answer is Android .NET N only supports one back (.NET N - 1). For example, .NET 9 can only target net9.0-android and net8.0-android. It does not support net7.0-android.

You should get a nice error message about how net8.0-android is not supported.

However, we had a unique requirement this time for new NativeAOT preview packages. We need to build all the AndroidX/etc NuGet packages we maintain with both net8.0-android for our currently supported users and net10.0-android previews because only .NET 10 assemblies will work with our NativeAOT preview work.

So for now we have temporarily allowed .NET 10 to build net8.0-android with an explicit android-net8 workload. This will be removed before .NET 10 RTM.

But the real answer is net8.0-android isn't (and won't be) supported in .NET 10.

[viniciusjarina]

Thank you for your explanation @jpobst . I thought .NET N(LTS) would be compatible with the previous LTS. Since .NET 8 will be supported until Nov/2026.

I will revert my C.I to use .NET 9.

[jpobst]

MAUI and the other mobile workloads (like .NET for Android) do not have LTS versions:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/platform/support/policy/maui

.NET 8 MAUI/Mobile will go out of support on May 14, 2025.

That is why we will not support building net8.0-android from .NET 10 when it is released in Nov 2025.