LibRedirect Mobile

LibRedirect Mobile is an Android app that routes links from large online services to privacy-friendly frontends. It can redirect links from services such as YouTube, Reddit, and X/Twitter to compatible Invidious, Redlib, or alternative instances before opening them in your preferred browser.

The app keeps routing rules in a signed, declarative manifest. This design lets the service catalog evolve without adding service-specific routing code to the Android client.

Features

• Privacy-focused routing: Redirect eligible links without accounts, analytics, or a backend.
• Offline-first behavior: Route links locally without making a network request during routing.
• Signed manifest updates: Verify Ed25519 signatures before activating remote routing data.
• Safe fallback: Open the original URL when routing fails for an eligible HTTP(S) link.
• Custom services: Add local services with a source hostname and an HTTPS instance or supported URL template.
• Instance selection: Choose from the instances available for each supported frontend.
• Explicit original-site option: Keep services available even when no public instance is currently listed.

How routing works

The Android client does not contain a separate code path for each supported service. It reads a manifest that describes source hosts, frontends, instances, and routing strategies.

The manifest supports a fixed set of routing primitives:

• replace-origin
• template
• custom-scheme
• passthrough

The app never executes JavaScript or arbitrary expressions from the manifest. The bundled catalog is generated from the upstream LibRedirect configuration and instance data, then converted and validated by the tooling in tools/.

Project structure

Directory	Purpose
android/	Kotlin and Jetpack Compose Android application
tools/	Bun and TypeScript tools for generating, validating, and signing manifests
schema/	JSON Schema for routing manifests
fixtures/	Real URL regression fixtures for the converter
dist/	Generated manifest artifacts produced by automation

Requirements

For Android development, install:

• JDK 17
• Android SDK with the compile SDK version pinned in android/gradle/libs.versions.toml

For manifest tooling, install Bun 1.1 or later.

Build and test the Android app

Run these commands from the android/ directory:

./gradlew ktlintCheck detekt
./gradlew testDebugUnitTest
./gradlew assembleDebug

To install the debug build on a connected device or emulator:

./gradlew installDebug

On Windows, use gradlew.bat instead of ./gradlew.

Run the manifest tooling

Install dependencies from the tools/ directory:

cd tools
bun install

Run checks and tests:

bun run lint
bun run format:check
bun run typecheck
bun test

Generate and sign routing data with the scripts defined in tools/package.json:

bun run generate
bun run sign

Keep private signing keys out of the repository. The signing workflow reads the private key from the MANIFEST_SIGNING_KEY environment or CI secret, while the Android app embeds the corresponding public key.

Security model

The app activates a remote manifest only after its Ed25519 signature verifies. It also rejects manifests with an older revision than the active manifest. If an update fails validation, the app keeps the last known good manifest.

Routing accepts only safe URL schemes and rejects malformed or private/local redirect targets. For more detail, see the security policy.

Contributing

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a pull request. Keep changes focused, run the relevant checks, and preserve the manifest's fixed routing primitive allowlist.

Do not report security vulnerabilities in a public issue. Follow the private reporting process in SECURITY.md.

Project status

The repository currently includes the Android routing core, Compose settings UI, signed manifest repository, generated upstream service catalog, local custom-service storage, and Bun tooling for upstream conversion and signing.

License

LibRedirect Mobile is distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. Third-party notices are available in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.