6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
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20 May 2025
Announcing Jetpack
Navigation 3
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
Posted by Don Turner - Developer Relations Engineer
☰ Android Developers Blog
Navigating between screens in your app should be simple, shouldn't it? However,
building a robust, scalable, and delightful navigation experience can be a challenge.
For years, the Jetpack Navigation library has been a key tool for developers, but as
the Android UI landscape has evolved, particularly with the rise of Jetpack
Compose, we recognized the need for a new approach.
Today, we're excited to introduce Jetpack Navigation 3, a new navigation library
built from the ground up specifically for Compose. For brevity, we'll just call it Nav3
from now on. This library embraces the declarative programming model and
Compose state as fundamental building blocks.
Why a new navigation library?
The original Jetpack Navigation library (sometimes referred to as Nav2 as it's on
major version 2) was initially announced back in 2018, before AndroidX and before
Compose. While it served its original goals well, we heard from you that it had
several limitations when working with modern Compose patterns.
One key limitation was that the back stack state could only be observed indirectly.
This meant there could be two sources of truth, potentially leading to an
inconsistent application state. Also, Nav2's NavHost was designed to display only
a single destination – the topmost one on the back stack – filling the available
space. This made it difficult to implement adaptive layouts that display multiple
panes of content simultaneously, such as a list-detail layout on large screens.
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
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Figure 1. Changing from single pane to multi-pane layouts can create navigational
challenges
Founding principles
Nav3 is built upon principles designed to provide greater flexibility and developer
control:
You own the back stack: You, the developer, not the library, own and control
the back stack. It's a simple list which is backed by Compose state.
Specifically, Nav3 expects your back stack to be SnapshotStateList<T>
where T can be any type you choose. You can navigate by adding or removing
items (Ts), and state changes are observed and reflected by Nav3's UI.
Get out of your way: We heard that you don't like a navigation library to be a
black box with inaccessible internal components and state. Nav3 is designed
to be open and extensible, providing you with building blocks and helpful
defaults. If you want custom navigation behavior you can drop down to lower
layers and create your own components and customizations.
Pick your building blocks: Instead of embedding all behavior within the
library, Nav3 offers smaller components that you can combine to create more
complex functionality. We've also provided a "recipes book" that shows how
to combine components to solve common navigation challenges.
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
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Figure 2. The Nav3 display observes changes to the developer-owned back stack.
Key features
Animations: Built-in transition animations are provided for changes in
destination, including for predictive back. It also has a flexible API for custom
animation behavior, allowing animations to be overridden at both the app and
the individual screen level.
Adaptive layouts: A flexible layout API (named Scenes) allows you to render
multiple destinations in the same layout (for example, a list-detail layout on
large screen devices). This makes it easy to switch between single and multi-
pane layouts.
State scoping: Enables state to be scoped to destinations on the back stack,
including optional ViewModel support via a dedicated Jetpack lifecycle
library.
Modularity: The API design allows navigation code to be split across multiple
modules. This improves build times and allows clear separation of
responsibilities between feature modules.
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
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Figure 3. Custom animations and predictive back are easy to implement, and
easy to override for individual destinations.
Basic code example
To give you an idea of how Nav3 works, here's a short code sample.
// Define the routes in your app and any arguments.
data object Home
data class Product(val id: String)
// Create a back stack, specifying the route the app should start with.
val backStack = remember { mutableStateListOf<Any>(Home) }
// A NavDisplay displays your back stack. Whenever the back stack changes, th
NavDisplay(
backStack = backStack,
// Specify what should happen when the user goes back
onBack = { [Link]() },
// An entry provider converts a route into a NavEntry which contains the
entryProvider = { route ->
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
when (route) {
☰ is Home -> NavEntry(route) {
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Column {
Text("Welcome to Nav3")
Button(onClick = {
// To navigate to a new route, just add that route to
[Link](Product("123"))
}) {
Text("Click to navigate")
}
}
}
is Product -> NavEntry(route) {
Text("Product ${[Link]} ")
}
else -> NavEntry(Unit) { Text("Unknown route: $route") }
}
}
)
Get started and provide feedback
To get started, check out the developer documentation, plus the recipes
repository which provides examples for:
common navigation UI, such as a navigation rail or bar
conditional navigation, such as a login flow
custom layouts using Scenes
We plan to provide code recipes, documentation and blogs for more complex
use cases in future.
Nav3 is currently in alpha, which means that the API is liable to change based
on feedback. If you have any issues, or would like to provide feedback, please
file an issue.
Nav3 offers a flexible and powerful foundation for building modern navigation
in your Compose applications. We're really excited to see what you build with
it.
Explore this announcement and all Google I/O 2025 updates on [Link]
starting May 22.
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Android Developers Blog: Announcing Jetpack Navigation 3
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