App compatibility

This document records what has been observed to work, against which server and app versions, and what "complete" means for each app. It is organized by capability, because opening an app does not prove it is compatible. Read it before claiming support for an app or platform, and update it when you gather new device or server evidence.

Last reviewed: 2026-10-02. Implementation, server APIs, and app behavior may have changed. The GitHub Releases page is the source of truth for published compatibility limitations. Planned work and acceptance gates live in ROADMAP.md; platform status lives in PLATFORMS.md.

# Kinds of evidence

These kinds of evidence are not interchangeable. Always say which one supports a claim.

Evidence	What it shows	What it does not show
Present in source	The code path exists.	That it works on a device or server.
Deterministic tests	Behavior against fixtures and fakes.	Compatibility with a real server or device.
Opt-in live audit	Behavior against the exact server and app versions tested.	Any other version, or general compatibility.
Device observation	Behavior on the named device or emulator.	Other devices, densities, or release artifacts.
Release qualification	A published artifact passed its release gates.	Workflows outside those gates.

Standard CI does not provision a real Nextcloud server or run connected Android instrumentation. Live-server audits are opt-in and read-only by default: they do not send Talk messages, save files or notes, delete content, manage apps, or perform administrator actions.

# Native experiences in source

This table lists native paths present in source at the review date and the audit evidence below, if any. It is not a promise of compatibility with every server or app version.

Experience	Native path in source
Files	WebDAV folders, list and grid layouts, previews, file details, bounded downloads, ETag-protected UTF-8 editing, copy, move, rename, and sharing
Folder sync and virtual files	Early selected-folder sync on Android, Linux, and Windows; Android DocumentsProvider; Linux FUSE virtual filesystem; Windows Cloud Files. Conflict recovery and background durability are still in development.
Photos and Memories	Media search, thumbnail grid, RAW and server previews, recognized People covers, per-person galleries, full-screen navigation, and zoom
Talk	Room list, history loading, typed file previews, call and system events, and shared objects. Sending is an explicit user action. Calls are not implemented.
Activity	Read-only OCS activity timeline with refresh and filters
Notes	Metadata-only list, Markdown editor and preview, formatting controls, category and favorite state, explicit save, and ETag conflicts
Dashboard and User Status	Widget and item feeds, native app routing, a short-lived account-private cache, and capability-gated status editing
Contacts, Calendar, and Tasks	CardDAV and CalDAV collections with native lists, editors, recurrence, and ETag-guarded writes
Deck	Native boards, lanes, and cards with drafts, attachments, and mutation recovery
Office	Native document browser and preview; Direct Editing handoff as described in ADR 0001
Unified Search	Provider-driven search with native routing for exact Files results
Other installed apps	Discovered at runtime and rendered through the dynamic descriptor, with reviewed presentation for apps such as Mail, Music, Budget, Tables, Pantry, Cookbook, Cospend, and Chores. Writes require verified provenance.

# Android integration audit

Last observed: 2026-09-28. These local development observations may have changed; the release link above stays authoritative for published artifacts. An API 36 emulator was exercised against a disposable Nextcloud 34.0.3 instance. This is not release qualification and not a claim of whole-app parity. Only disposable records were mutated. Personal accounts, live calls, sync data-loss gates, and every advertised app action were not covered.

Navigation and layout

• The Apps browser: search, category filters, opening an app, and its overflow menu, at compact width and in landscape at 1.3 font scale.
• Photos showed equal left and right grid spacing. Opening a preview from the rightmost column and switching list and grid layouts worked. This does not cover every density or screen size.
• Transfer history filters stayed reachable with an empty history. No active transfer or background recovery was qualified by that check.

Files

• Draft restoration after process restart, conditional text save, concurrent-edit conflict preservation, rename, copy, move, image zoom, and cached image access without network.
• On this server, Sabre rejected correctly formed collection ETag conditions even when the folder ETag matched. Folder rename, move, copy, and delete therefore fail safely. The client keeps the guard, explains the limitation, and never retries without it. File ETag conditions remain supported. This is specific to the tested server.

Groupware

• Contacts and Tasks loaded multiple DAV resources. Disposable contact and task create, edit, and delete journeys completed, including task completion and editor rotation. After correcting deletion verification, a fresh contact create and delete returned to the list and Home without restarting the app.
• Calendar: weekly series creation and expanded occurrences; later occurrences stayed read-only. A single-event create and delete verified recovery completion and navigation. Schedule, Details, and Save/Cancel stayed reachable in landscape at 1.3 font scale; that check cancelled an empty draft.
• Notes: create, body and favorite update, save, reopen, and delete. Short-height editing and Markdown preview were retested after layout fixes, including landscape at 1.3 font scale.
• Deck: card creation, a due date, completion, and confirmed deletion.

Contract-derived apps

• Chores 0.2.0 rendered tasks, history, team membership, and invitations.
• Tables rendered its inventory, rows, named row values, and contextual row titles after the descriptor-to-detail fix. Row editing is not qualified.
• Cookbook ingredient scaling, Cospend bills and members, Pantry hierarchy, and Activity filtering were exercised. Financial writes were not qualified.
• Pantry 0.34.0 displayed reviewed epoch timestamps as readable UTC dates.
• Budget 2.54.0 opened its dashboard and showed account balances and recent transactions after the OCS accounts-list fix, confirmed on the final Dev APK. The server returned HTTP 404 for the optional account summary; that partial failure stays visible, and net worth is not inferred by summing balances.

Media

• Music albums, tracks, and playlists loaded after the session-cookie fixes. Native playback reached the end of a synthetic track from Music and from Files. Queue, Play all, and Stop were exercised. This is not long-duration playback qualification.
• Memories timeline and album reads worked. People stayed unavailable because the recognition backend was not enabled, and the screen explained the required server setup. This does not qualify recognition.

Communication and documents

• Mail inbox, thread list, and message bodies rendered. After the message identity fix, opening the original message from a thread showed its body. Attachment names, types, and sizes rendered; opening or downloading Mail attachments is not qualified.
• Talk sent a message in a scoped disposable room. Calls, external participants, and attachment workflows are not qualified.
• Native PDF and Office-file previews were exercised. Collaborative Office editing was not qualified.

Activity and Search links

Exact Files-link routing has deterministic tests. Selecting a synthetic image from Search opened its native preview directly. Activity uses the same policy, but its exact-file journey was not exercised separately. App-specific item links such as Notes and Deck keep the native app fallback.

Follow-up pass

A focused follow-up verified Pantry list descriptions and item quantities, and Tables inventory counts, expandable metadata, projected row summaries, and row details. Fixtures held five grocery items and five table rows with three columns. Pantry stayed usable in landscape at 1.3 font scale. After activity recreation, an ID-only parent showed its resource label instead of a raw ID. The build passed 120 selected desktop tests and produced a Dev APK and desktop distributable. This does not qualify Pantry completion writes, Tables row editing, or all advertised app actions.

# Whole-app parity contract

Compatibility is not complete when an app merely opens. For every installed app, the native experience must expose every feature that the exact installed version advertises through a verified contract. The server contract stays authoritative; this table defines the workspace each feature belongs in.

Installed app	Upstream workspace model	Feature groups that must remain reachable
Activity	Filtered chronological feed	Filters, actors, object previews, timestamps, pagination and safe deep links
Budget	Financial dashboard and ledger	Accounts, categories, transactions, totals, periods, charts and contract-backed editing
Calendar	Calendar navigator, time grid and agenda	Calendar visibility, month/week/agenda, search, event create/edit, recurrence, attendees, reminders and attachments
Chores	Household task workspace	Lists, assignees, recurrence, points, completion and history
Contacts	Address books, people list and contact inspector	Address books, groups, search, contact details, photos and contract-backed editing
Cookbook	Category navigator, recipe gallery and recipe reader	Categories, search, recipe images, ingredients, instructions, nutrition, yield and timers
Cospend	Project navigator, ledger and bill form	Projects, members, bills, balances, settlement, currencies, categories and reimbursement state
Deck	Board navigator and Kanban lanes	Boards, stacks, cards, ordering, labels, assignees, due dates, attachments, archive and activity
Files	Folder tree and file browser	List/grid, search, preview, upload, sharing, versions, favorites, offline state and sync
Mail	Account/folder/message workspace and composer	Accounts, folders, messages, threads, search, compose, drafts, recipients and attachments
Memories	Timeline and media collections	Date groups, albums, people, places, maps, favorites, RAW previews and selection actions
Music	Library navigator, queue and player	Artists, albums, tracks, playlists, genres, search, queue and playback controls
Office	Document browser and collaborative editor	New/open, format-specific editing, save state, locking, collaboration and version-safe handoff
Pantry	Contract-derived collection hierarchy	Every verified collection, relationship, detail, form, action and summary exposed by the installed version
Photos	Timeline and album gallery	Timeline, albums, favorites, shared media, tags, locations, selection and sharing
Search	Provider filters and result groups	All advertised providers, paging, previews and native deep links
Tables	Table/context navigator, typed grid and row form	Tables, contexts, templates, views, columns, rows, sorting, filters, inline editing, forms and sharing
Talk	Conversation list, chat thread and call workspace	Rooms, messages, replies, reactions, attachments, participants, calls, screen sharing and call controls
Tasks	List navigator and task inspector	Lists, smart filters, task editing, completion, priority, recurrence, due dates and subtasks

Each feature owns its state and actions on every platform. Layout adapts without forking the workflow:

• Compact widths use one pane, touch-sized actions, system back, sheets, and progressive detail.
• Medium widths use a navigation rail or list-detail layout when both regions stay usable.
• Expanded desktop widths use persistent navigation, multi-pane context, dense grids, keyboard shortcuts, pointer selection, and inspectors.
• Every feature covers loading, cached refresh, empty, offline, permission-denied, unsupported, stale-contract, and partial-failure states.
• Every reachable action has a meaningful accessibility name, logical focus order, scalable text, non-color status cues, keyboard access on desktop, and touch access on mobile.
• A feature without verified mutation provenance stays visibly read-only. Behavior such as Talk calls and Office collaborative editing, which reusable schema semantics cannot represent safely, needs an app-specific adapter.