6/27/25, 4:48 PM Navigation 3 | App architecture | Android Developers
Navigation 3
Experimental: Navigation 3 is in alpha. The APIs may change in the future. Please file bugs and feedback
using the issue tracker
([Link]
Navigation 3 is a new navigation library designed to work with Compose. With Navigation 3,
you have full control over your back stack, and navigating to and from destinations is as
simple as adding and removing items from a list. It creates a flexible app navigation system
by providing:
Conventions for modeling a back stack, where each entry on the back stack represents
content that the user has navigated to
A UI that automatically updates with back stack changes (including animations)
A scope for items in the back stack, allowing state to be retained while an item is in the
back stack
An adaptive layout system that allows multiple destinations to be displayed at the same
time, and allowing seamless switching between those layouts
A mechanism for content to communicate with its parent layout (metadata)
At a high level, you implement Navigation 3 in the following ways:
1. Define the content that users can navigate to in your app, each with a unique key, and
add a function to resolve that key to the content. See Resolve keys to content
(/guide/navigation/navigation-3/basics#resolve-keys).
2. Create a back stack that keys are pushed onto and removed as users navigate your
app. See Create a back stack (/guide/navigation/navigation-3/basics#create-back).
3. Use a NavDisplay
(/reference/kotlin/androidx/navigation3/ui/package-
summary#NavDisplay([Link],[Link],[Link]
nment,kotlin.Function1,[Link],[Link],[Link]
[Link],kotlin.Function1,kotlin.Function1,kotlin.Function1,kotlin.Function1))
to display your app's back stack. Whenever the back stack changes, it updates the UI
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6/27/25, 4:48 PM Navigation 3 | App architecture | Android Developers
to display relevant content. See Display the back stack
(/guide/navigation/navigation-3/basics#display-back).
4. Modify NavDisplay 's scene strategies (/guide/navigation/navigation-3/custom-layouts) as
needed to support adaptive layouts and different platforms.
You can see the full source code
([Link] for
Navigation 3 on AOSP.
Improvements upon Jetpack Navigation
Navigation 3 improves upon the original Jetpack Navigation API in the following ways:
Provides a simpler integration with Compose
Offers you full control of the back stack
Makes it possible to create layouts that can read more than one destination from the
back stack at the same time, allowing them to adapt to changes in window size and
other inputs.
Read more about Navigation 3's principles and API design choices in this blog post
([Link]
[Link])
.
Code samples
The recipes repository ([Link] contains examples of how to
use the Navigation 3 building blocks to solve common navigation challenges.
Content and code samples on this page are subject to the licenses described in the Content License (/license).
Java and OpenJDK are trademarks or registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Last updated 2025-06-17 UTC.
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