ZCode for Termux

The full GLM-5.3 AI coding IDE — running natively on your Android phone.

Quick Start · Features · How It Works · Environment Detection · Troubleshooting · Uninstall

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📱 What is this?

ZCode is the official harness for GLM-5.3 — a full-featured AI coding IDE built on Electron (Chromium + Node.js) with multi-agent orchestration, skills, MCP server support, and deep GLM integration.

It ships for desktop only (macOS / Windows / Linux).

This repo turns the official Linux ARM64 .deb into a one-shot install that runs inside Termux on your Android phone via proot-distro + Debian + Termux:X11. No APK, no rooting, no compilation — just clone and run.

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🚀 Quick Start

# 1. Install Termux from F-Droid (NOT Play Store — that version is dead)
#    → https://f-droid.org/packages/com.termux/

# 2. Install git
pkg install git -y

# 3. Clone this repo
git clone https://github.com/NaustudentX18/zcode-termux.git
cd zcode-termux

# 4. Run the installer (takes 5-10 min)
bash install.sh

# 5. Launch ZCode
zcode

That's it. The installer auto-detects your device, configures everything, and drops a zcode command in your PATH plus a home-screen widget shortcut.

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✨ Features

Full ZCode IDE

• GLM-5.3 AI agent with multi-task orchestration
• Monaco code editor with syntax highlighting
• Integrated terminal (bash)
• Git integration (commit, diff, history)
• File explorer with full project awareness
• Extension marketplace access
• Skills system with auto-loading

Mobile-Optimized

• Touch targets — all buttons enlarged to 44px minimum for finger taps
• Wider scrollbars — 16px drag handles for touch
• Pinch-to-zoom enabled on the whole window
• Scaled fonts — auto-scaled based on your screen DPI
• Virtual keyboard support in terminal and editor
• Compact sidebar — 56px activity bar for thumb reach
• Gesture scrolling — smooth momentum scroll

Environment-Aware

The installer runs a full device probe and writes a persistent config:

Detected	Used For
Device model & brand	Bug report context
Android version + SDK level	Compatibility checks
CPU architecture & core count	Process limit tuning
Total RAM	Electron memory allocation (1.5GB → 4GB tiers)
Screen DPI	UI scale factor + font size
GPU renderer (Adreno/Mali/PowerVR)	GPU acceleration vs software rendering
Available storage	Pre-flight check
Root status	Diagnostic info

Pre-Installed Dev Stack

The Debian proot comes loaded with:

• Node.js 20 LTS + npm + TypeScript + ts-node
• Python 3 + pip + venv
• Git with auto-fetch enabled
• ripgrep, fd-find, bat, jq, htop — modern CLI tools
• clang, make, cmake, pkg-config — build tools
• MCP servers — filesystem, git, fetch, memory

Pre-Configured Skills

10 skills auto-load on first launch:

Skill	Trigger Keywords	What It Does
Code Review	"review", "code review"	Severity-rated automated review
Git Master	"commit", "git", "rebase"	Atomic commits, rebases, history
TDD Mode	"tdd", "test", "red-green"	Test-first development loop
Architect	"architect", "design", "plan"	Architecture analysis (read-only)
Debugger	"debug", "fix", "broken"	Root-cause diagnosis loop
Refactor	"refactor", "rename", "extract"	Safe surgical refactoring
Security Scan	"security", "vulnerability"	OWASP Top 10 detection
Docs Generator	"document", "readme", "docs"	Auto-generate documentation
Deploy	"deploy", "build", "ship"	Build & deploy orchestration
Mobile Dev	"mobile", "android", "termux"	Termux/proot-aware dev context

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🏗 How It Works

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Android (aarch64)                                  │
│                                                     │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────┐  │
│  │  Termux (terminal emulator)                   │  │
│  │                                               │  │
│  │  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐  │  │
│  │  │  proot-distro → Debian ARM64 (chroot)    │  │  │
│  │  │                                         │  │  │
│  │  │  ┌───────────────────────────────────┐  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ZCode (Electron)                  │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── Chromium rendering engine     │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── Node.js runtime               │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── Monaco editor                 │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── GLM-5.3 agent                 │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── Skills (10 pre-loaded)        │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  ├── MCP servers (4 configured)    │  │  │  │
│  │  │  │  └── Mobile touch CSS (injected)   │  │  │  │
│  │  │  └───────────────────────────────────┘  │  │  │
│  │  └─────────────────────────────────────────┘  │  │
│  │                                               │  │
│  │  Termux:X11 ← display server ( Wayland )      │  │
│  │  PulseAudio ← audio server                     │  │
│  └───────────────────────────────────────────────┘  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

ZCode is an Electron app. Android can't run Electron natively (no desktop Chromium, no Node.js). This project bridges that gap by running a Debian ARM64 chroot inside Termux via proot-distro, installing the official Linux ARM64 .deb there, and launching it with Termux:X11 providing the display server.

No root required. proot uses ptrace to fake chroot without kernel privileges.

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🔍 Environment Detection

When you run install.sh, it probes your device and generates a persistent config:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│        ENVIRONMENT DETECTION REPORT         │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Device:        Samsung SM-S928B             │
│ Manufacturer:  samsung                       │
│ Android:       v14 (SDK 34)                 │
│ CPU:           aarch64 (8 cores)             │
│ RAM:           12288 MB                     │
│ Storage free:  84521 MB                     │
│ Screen DPI:    480                           │
│ Rooted:        false                        │
│ Termux prefix: /data/data/com.termux/...    │
│ proot-distro:  true                          │
│ Debian proot:  false                        │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘

This config drives:

• Memory tiers — 4GB / 6GB / 8GB+ RAM each get different Electron heap limits and renderer process counts
• GPU flags — Adreno/Mali/PowerVR get hardware acceleration; unknown GPUs fall back to SwiftShader
• UI scaling — DPI → scale factor (160dpi=1.0, 480dpi=3.0), clamped to [1.0, 3.0]
• Font size — 13px / 14px / 16px based on DPI tier

The config is written to ~/.config/zcode-termux/mobile-env.sh and sourced by the launcher on every zcode invocation.

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📋 Requirements

Requirement	Minimum	Recommended
Architecture	aarch64 (ARM64)	—
Android	10 (SDK 29)	13+
RAM	4 GB	8 GB+
Storage	2 GB free	4 GB free
Termux	From F-Droid	+ Termux:Widget add-on
Display	Termux:X11 (auto-installed)	—
GLM API key	—	z.ai/subscribe

⚠️ Do not install Termux from the Play Store — Google's version is deprecated and broken. Use F-Droid or the direct APK from Termux's GitHub releases.

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🎮 Launching

From terminal

zcode

From home screen

1. Install Termux:Widget from F-Droid
2. Long-press your home screen → Add Widget → Termux:Widget
3. Select the ZCode shortcut
4. Tap to launch anytime

First launch

First launch takes 10-20 seconds — proot spins up Debian, Termux:X11 initializes the display, and Electron loads. Subsequent launches are faster (Debian proot caches).

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🔧 Troubleshooting

📦 ZCode won't launch / blank screen

# Check if Termux:X11 is running
ps aux | grep termux-x11

# Kill stale processes and retry
pkill -f termux-x11
zcode

# Launch manually to see error output
proot-distro login debian --shared-tmp -- \
  bash -c "DISPLAY=:0 /usr/bin/zcode --no-sandbox --enable-logging"

🔧 dpkg dependency errors during install

proot-distro login debian -- bash -c \
  "apt-get update && apt-get install -f -y && dpkg --configure -a"

Then re-run bash install.sh.

💾 Out of memory / crashes / OOM-killed

Electron is memory-heavy. The installer auto-tunes based on your RAM, but if you're still crashing:

# Reduce Electron memory in the launcher
sed -i 's/--max-old-space-size=[0-9]*/--max-old-space-size=512/' $PREFIX/bin/zcode

Also: close other apps, disable other proot distros (proot-distro remove ubuntu etc).

🔑 GLM API key not set / AI features not working

Get a key from z.ai/subscribe, then:

# Set it in ZCode's config
proot-distro login debian -- bash -c \
  "echo 'export ZAI_API_KEY=your-key-here' >> /root/.bashrc"

# Or set it in ZCode Settings → AI → API Key

The GLM Coding Lite plan is $12.6/month and includes 10,000 credits/week.

🖥 GPU rendering issues / flickering

The installer auto-detects your GPU. If you get artifacts:

# Force software rendering
sed -i 's/--enable-gpu-rasterization/--disable-gpu/' $PREFIX/bin/zcode

📱 Touch input not working properly

Make sure Termux:X11 is the latest nightly:

pkg uninstall termux-x11
pkg install termux-x11-nightly

The mobile touch CSS is injected automatically. If it's not loading, verify:

cat ~/.config/zcode-termux/mobile-env.sh | grep GPU_FLAGS

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🗑 Uninstall

# Quick uninstall (removes ZCode, launcher, shortcuts)
bash uninstall.sh

# Full removal (also deletes Debian proot — reclaims ~1.5GB)
bash uninstall.sh --full

Or manually:

rm $PREFIX/bin/zcode
rm ~/.shortcuts/ZCode
proot-distro remove debian

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📁 Repo Structure

zcode-termux/
├── assets/
│   ├── logo.svg              # Main logo (512×512, animated)
│   └── logo-128.svg          # Favicon size (128×128)
├── scripts/
│   ├── env-detect.sh         # Device probe + mobile config generator
│   ├── bootstrap-skills.sh   # Pre-load skills, MCP, settings, dev tools
│   └── mobile-touch.css      # Touch-optimized CSS injected into Electron
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── release.yml       # Auto-release on tag push
├── install.sh                # ← You run this
├── uninstall.sh              # ← Or this to remove
├── README.md                 # You are here
├── LICENSE                   # MIT
├── CHANGELOG.md              # Version history
└── .gitignore

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🔗 Links

Resource	URL
ZCode official site	zcode.z.ai
GLM API subscription	z.ai/subscribe
Termux (F-Droid)	f-droid.org/packages/com.termux
Termux:Widget	f-droid.org/packages/com.termux.widget
ZCode downloads	zcode.z.ai/en#all-downloads
Report issues	GitHub Issues

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⚖️ Disclaimer

This is an unofficial community project. ZCode is built by z.ai. This repo automates installing the official Linux ARM64 .deb inside a Termux proot environment — it does not modify, crack, or redistribute ZCode itself. Not affiliated with or endorsed by z.ai.

Use at your own risk. The proot approach has ~10-15% CPU overhead vs native Linux.

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📄 License

MIT © 2026 NaustudentX18