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Seb3thehackerandClaude Sonnet 5
48be745659
Gearslip captures playback, not the screen, but Android's consent dialog and persistent indicator look identical either way. Note why the indicator appears, and correct the adjacent no-adb claim to mention the two optional audio commands as the sole exception. Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
64 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
64 lines
3.0 KiB
Markdown
<img src="docs/icon/gearslip-icon.png" alt="Gearslip icon" width="96" height="96">
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# Gearslip
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Bring any app to your car screen.
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## What Gearslip is
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Gearslip is an Android Auto client for the phone. It speaks the Android Auto protocol
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directly to a car head unit over USB, with no Google software in the path. Gearslip acts
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as a Car App Library host: an app that ships a car interface hands Gearslip a template,
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and Gearslip renders that template natively on the car screen. Nothing is mirrored from
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the phone. For apps without a car interface, Gearslip offers a separate screen-sharing
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mode.
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The author reverse-engineered the protocol for interoperability, so that a client other
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than Google's own can talk to a car head unit.
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## Status
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- **Templated apps work.** Gearslip renders all 16 template types that the Car App
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Library defines, and it draws its own keyboard for search and sign-in. It has been
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tested against several real navigation and media apps.
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- **Media playback works.** Gearslip lets you browse and control car-enabled media apps
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from the car screen, with lyrics and playback state, over the same host connection.
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- **Audio reaches the car by capturing playback, not by mirroring the screen.** Android
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requires a screen-share style consent dialog and indicator for this, even though
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Gearslip never reads the screen; that grant is the only way a non-privileged app can
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tap another app's audio. The consent normally repeats every drive; the app's own setup
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steps include two optional adb commands that reduce it to a one-time grant.
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- **A real head unit needs a certificate that Google controls.** A head unit accepts only
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a phone identity that chains to Google's Automotive Link certificate authority, and
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Google alone issues those certificates. Gearslip does not ship one. Without it,
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Gearslip runs and renders correctly against a debug harness, but a real car rejects the
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connection. A leaked certificate exists that older head units accept; newer firmware
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and Google's reference tooling reject it.
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- **Gearslip needs no adb, root, or Shizuku.** Every feature relies on an ordinary
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Android permission or an on-device consent dialog. The two adb commands mentioned
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above, for audio, are the sole exception: both are optional, and both only remove a
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dialog that the driver would otherwise see once per drive.
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## Building
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```
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./gradlew :gearslip:assembleDebug
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```
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The APK lands at `build/Gearslip-debug.apk`.
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A release build needs a signing key. Copy `keystore.properties.example` to
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`keystore.properties`, fill in your own values, and run
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`./gradlew :gearslip:assembleRelease`. Git ignores both the properties file and the
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keystore. Without them, the debug build still works.
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## Writing apps for Gearslip
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[docs/BUILDING_APPS.md](docs/BUILDING_APPS.md) specifies how to write apps that Gearslip
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can render: templated apps, media apps, and the Gearslip app protocol.
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## License
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Gearslip is licensed under AGPL-3.0; see [LICENSE](LICENSE). The author offers a separate
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commercial license for private use outside the AGPL's terms; see [NOTICE.md](NOTICE.md).
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