Limitations

What Kite does not do yet, and what it deliberately does not do. Knowing both before you adopt it is worth more than discovering them later.

Version 0.1.1 is not a stable API

The generated surface, the rule annotations and the board protocol may all change between 0.x releases. Pin an exact version.

A graph argument's identity is its name

Two leaves called timeoutMillis are the same argument and get one value — which is the feature that replaces @Named, and also the sharp edge. Two unrelated String leaves that happen to share a parameter name will unify. Give arguments names specific enough to be globally unique (profileApiKey, not key).

Runtime lookups need a @Root

The processor reads constructors. A plain class resolved only through by injected() or Kite.get<T>() has no constructor parameter pointing at it, so it needs @Root(Foo::class) in the owning module's GraphRules.kt. A class behind an interface never needs this.

The same applies to a plain class exported to another module — see multi-module apps.

The board's live runtime needs adb

Runtime facts come from a device over adb with a forwarded port. There is no Wi-Fi mode. Without adb, without a device, or with an app built without the inspector, the board still works — it shows the static graph and nothing else.

Toolchain is not loose

KSP is versioned against the exact Kotlin compiler, so Kite tracks specific Kotlin and KSP versions rather than a range. minSdk is 23 and the JVM target is 11. See the requirements.

Things that are missing on purpose

These are not gaps — the concept does not exist because it has nothing to do:

• Assisted injection. An unprovidable ViewModel parameter simply becomes a parameter of the generated adapter. No @AssistedInject, no factory interface. See ViewModels.
• Modules and @Provides. Types you don't own become graph arguments; their construction is ordinary code at the Graph.start call site.
• Qualifier annotations. A graph argument's identity is its parameter name, and choosing between implementations is a mark — your own annotation on both sides, with nothing to apply it to.
• Components and subcomponents. Scopes open and close with the Android lifecycle; there is nothing to build or install.