The CometChat Android UI Kit provides a pre-built user interface kit that developers can use to quickly integrate a reliable & fully-featured chat experience into an existing or a new app.

• Android Studio
• Android device or emulator running Android 9.0 (API 28) or above.
• Java 11 or above.

The UI Kit is published to CometChat's Cloudsmith Maven repository, which is not one of Gradle's defaults — add it in settings.gradle alongside google() and mavenCentral():

dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        google()
        mavenCentral()
        maven { url "https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/cometchat/cometchat/maven/" }
    }
}

Then add the toolkit you want. Both bring in chatuikit-core transitively, so you do not need to declare it yourself:

// Jetpack Compose
implementation("com.cometchat:chatuikit-compose-android:")

// or XML views
implementation("com.cometchat:chatuikit-kotlin-android:")

Calling ships separately. The UI Kit is compiled against the Calls SDK but does not depend on it: the dependency is compileOnly, so it is absent from the published POMs and Gradle will not pull it in for you. Add it yourself if you use any calling feature:

implementation("com.cometchat:calls-sdk-android:5.0.2")

If you omit it the project still compiles, because nothing in the UI Kit requires it at build time — but the first call into a calling feature fails at runtime with ClassNotFoundException for com.cometchat.calls.core.CometChatCalls. Use the version above; it is the one this release is built and tested against.

To set up CometChat Android UI Kit and utilize CometChat for your chat functionality, you'll need to follow these steps:

1. Register at the CometChat Dashboard to create an account.

2. After registering, log into your CometChat account and create a new app. Once created, CometChat will generate an Auth Key and App ID for you. Keep these credentials secure as you'll need them later.

3. Check the Key Concepts to understand the basic components of CometChat.

4. Refer to the Integration Steps in our documentation to integrate the UI Kit into your Android app.

For issues running the project or integrating with our UI Kits, consult our documentation or create a support ticket or seek real-time support via the CometChat Dashboard.