Send what you found on your phone to your Android TV / Google TV: share a page to Skiff, and it opens on the TV.

• A title by name: type it in the box ("panchayat") and pick it from the results (Cinemeta's search), then Play.
• An IMDb page (from Chrome or the IMDb app) opens in Nuvio: on that title's stream picker over USB debugging (for a series, pick the season and episode, then Play), or on its page when paired. Or in Stremio, at the streams: pick it under Open with.
• A Trakt, Simkl, Letterboxd, MDBList or WeTrakr page (a movie, a show, or one episode of it) opens the same way: Skiff finds its IMDb id through that site (or, failing that, searches its name), and an episode's link goes straight to that episode.
• Any other link (JioHotstar, YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video, Stremio…) opens in the TV app that opens such links, when the TV has one. How each kind of link opens is set by link rules: a fix there reaches the app without a new release.

No developer options needed: pair once with the code the TV shows, like the Google TV app.

Not affiliated with Nuvio or any streaming service.

The remote button, beside Play, opens a remote for the TV: a D-pad with OK, Home, Back and Menu, a volume rocker, playback, power, and Type on the TV (text straight into the TV's search box, instead of its on-screen keyboard). Arrows, volume and seek repeat when held, and the phone's own volume buttons turn the TV's volume while it's open. A Quick Settings tile (Skiff remote) opens it from anywhere.

Cursor (over USB debugging) swaps the D-pad for a touchpad and puts a mouse pointer on the TV, for apps that don't follow the D-pad: drag to move it, tap to click, the strip at the edge scrolls. With Air on, turning the phone, held like a remote, moves it (the gyroscope). The pointer is a USB mouse made up on the TV with Android's own hid command (Android 9 and later); pairing's protocol has no pointer.

Every title and link you share, paste or play goes to History (newest first, with its episode and when), and the bookmark saves one for later. Tap one to load it, ▶ to play it on the TV; ⋮ edits it (name, movie or series, episode) or removes it, and so does a swipe, with Undo. Kept on the phone (files/library.json).

Skiff uses USB debugging when the TV allows this phone, else pairing. Settings → Connection can fix either one per TV, and Settings → Activity shows how each thing was sent.

Pairing is the Android TV Remote protocol (v2), the one the Google TV app speaks: pairing on port 6467 with a 6-character code, then keys, text and app links over TLS on 6466. The phone's certificate is made once in the Android Keystore; the TV's is pinned at pairing (atv/, after androidtvremote2).

• Finding the TV. Google TVs announce themselves on the Wi-Fi (mDNS): _androidtvremote2._tcp gives the TV's name ("Living room TV"), _adb._tcp on port 5555 means network debugging is on. No address to type (TvFinder.kt).

• Which Nuvio. The TV says which apps open nuvio:// (the Play Store and GitHub builds, forks that kept the scheme), plus those opening stremio:// with Nuvio's activity class com.nuvio.tv.MainActivity (forks with their own scheme), and Stremio (the other apps opening stremio://). Pick one under Open with; titles open in its own activity. Paired, the TV doesn't list its apps: Open with offers Nuvio and Stremio.

• The title. The IMDb id (from the shared link, or typed) gives the name and whether it's a movie or a series, through Cinemeta, the free catalog Stremio and Nuvio use (Meta.kt).

• Opening it, paired. Nuvio's own link, nuvio://movie/tt… or nuvio://series/tt…, sent as an app link: the title's page.

• Opening it in Stremio. Stremio's deep link to the streams, stremio:///detail/movie/tt0120737/tt0120737 or stremio:///detail/series/tt42127457/tt42127457:1:4 for an episode: as an app link when paired, to Stremio's activity over USB debugging.

• Opening it, over USB debugging. Straight to the streams, from these intent extras (the ones it writes to its own "Continue Watching" home-screen row). The phone sends them over the TV's ADB, with dadb (TvLink.kt):

  am start -n com.nuvio.tv/.MainActivity -f 0x14000000 \
    --es contentId tt42127457 --es contentType series --es videoId tt42127457:1:4 \
    --ei season 1 --ei episode 4 --es launchMode stream --es name 'Agent Kim Reactivated'
  

  launchMode=stream with a name goes to the stream picker; without the name, Nuvio opens the title's page. For a movie, contentType=movie and videoId is just the IMDb id.

• Other links. The TV says which apps open the link (cmd package query-activities), without the ones that open any web page (browsers). The link rules can change the link for the TV app first (JioHotstar's TV app opens hotstar://in/movies/… but not https://www.hotstar.com/in/movies/…), order the apps, set how the app starts, and say where the title comes from (Rules.kt, Links.kt).

1. Phone and TV on the same Wi-Fi. Open Skiff: the TV shows up under Nearby TVs; pick it.
2. Connect to : tap Show a code on the TV, type the code. That's it.

For the stream picker and Open with (optional): on the TV, Settings → System → About → press Android TV OS build 7 times; then Developer options → turn on USB debugging, and allow the phone when the TV asks (tick Always allow). It stays on for this to work: anything you allowed on the TV can control it.

Skiff sends crash reports and errors (Firebase Crashlytics) and usage (Firebase Analytics): which screens and features are used, whether opening a link, playing a title, connecting the remote, pairing, an ADB command or an APK install worked, with how (pairing or USB debugging) and, for links, the site (youtube.com); and where something failed, with the kind of error. Never titles, links, typed or searched text, or commands. Settings → Privacy turns both off. Titles' names and art come from Cinemeta; history stays on the phone. Details: PRIVACY.md.

English, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), French and German, following the phone's language; on Android 13+, Settings → Apps → Skiff → Language picks one for Skiff alone. A translation is one file, app/src/main/res/values-<language>/strings.xml, with the names of the English one: corrections and new languages are welcome.

Get the APK from Releases. Up to 1.2.0 the app was Nuvio Remote (dev.nuvioremote); Skiff (dev.skiff) is a new app for Android, so uninstall the old one. Every release is signed with the same release key, so a new version installs over the old one.

./gradlew assembleGithubDebug
adb install app/build/outputs/apk/github/debug/app-github-debug.apk

Two flavors, the same app (dev.skiff): github (the APK on GitHub releases; updates from GitHub) and play (the bundle for Google Play; updates through Play's in-app updates, as Play requires). BuildConfig.STORE says which; what differs lives in app/src/github and app/src/play.

The debug build is Skiff Debug (dev.skiff.debug, an amber icon): it installs beside the release one. Release builds are shrunk with R8 (proguard-rules.pro).

Kotlin, Jetpack Compose with Material 3 Expressive and Material You colors, minSdk 26.

The version is in version.properties. A release (assembleRelease, bundleRelease) is signed when KEYSTORE_FILE, KEYSTORE_PASSWORD and KEY_ALIAS are set.

Releasing: Actions → Release → Run workflow, and pick patch, minor or major. The release workflow raises the version, builds and signs the APK and app bundle with the repo's secrets, and only then commits the new version to main, tags it (v1.9.0) and publishes the release.