What is buckbone?

Buckbone is a time-saving tool for developers who want to build Android apps using Buck, Facebook's alternative to the standard Android build system. Instead of manually creating all the folders, configuration files, and boilerplate code required to start a new project, this tool generates the entire skeleton for you in one step. You run a single command with your app's package name and a destination folder, and the tool instantly creates a ready-to-build Android project. The generated structure includes everything Buck needs: a top-level configuration file, an application manifest, a debug signing key, a starter activity, and standard resource folders for strings and assets. Once generated, you just run Buck's build command and the project compiles. This is aimed at Android developers who prefer Buck's fast, incremental builds over the default Gradle setup. If you're starting a new app from scratch and want to avoid the tedious scaffolding work, or if you've struggled with manually wiring up Buck configuration files, this tool eliminates that friction. It's particularly useful for teams standardizing on Buck who need consistent project structures across multiple apps. There's also an experimental Kotlin variant for developers working in that language, though it requires pointing to a local Kotlin compiler path. The project is built as simple shell scripts rather than a complex application, which makes it lightweight and easy to inspect or modify if you want slightly different output. The main tradeoff is that it only supports Buck, so it's not useful if you're sticking with the standard Android tooling. The Kotlin version is also marked as experimental, suggesting the Java path is the more reliable option for now.