svg2vector
   
> English | 中文
> ### The missing SVG → VectorDrawable CLI for Android.
Android Studio's Vector Asset Studio is GUI-only. Google's official
android CLI ships with create, emulator, sdk, skills... but no SVG conversion. So in 2026 you still need to launch a 1 GB IDE and click through dialogs just to turn an icon into a drawable.
svg2vector is the headless, agent-callable CLI that should have shipped: same Svg2Vector algorithm Android Studio uses internally, packaged as a ~24 MB native binary with ~8 ms cold start. Wire it into Claude, agents, scripts, or CI.
| | Vector Asset Studio (AS GUI) | svg2vector | | --------------------- | ---------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | | Invocation | Mouse clicks | CLI / Claude / agent / CI | | Batch | ✗ one file at a time | ✓ batch -r for an entire directory | | Exit codes | ✗ | ✓ structured 0 / 1 / 2 / 3 | | stdout / stderr split | ✗ | ✓ stdout = success only, stderr = warnings| | Cold start | seconds (IDE startup) | ~8 ms (macOS arm64 native binary) | | Output | Svg2Vector algorithm | same algorithm, byte-identical |
Under the hood it wraps Android's official com.android.ide.common.vectordrawable.Svg2Vector (com.android.tools:sdk-common) — the exact class the Vector Asset Studio GUI runs. Anything the GUI can convert, this CLI can convert, byte-for-byte the same.
---
Install
Option 1 — Claude Code plugin (recommended)
In Claude Code:
/plugin marketplace add HelloVass/svg2vector-skills
/plugin install svg2vectorOnce installed:
- Active:
/svg2vector convert <input.svg>slash command - Passive: just say `convert all SVGs under ./design/svgs into vectordrawables
and put them in app/src/main/res/drawable/` — the skill auto-activates.
On first use the slash command will offer to install the native binary (~24 MB):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelloVass/svg2vector-skills/main/install.sh | shOption 2 — Plain CLI (no Claude required)
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelloVass/svg2vector-skills/main/install.sh | sh
svg2vector --versioninstall.sh auto-detects OS and arch (darwin-arm64 / darwin-x86_64 /
linux-x86_64), pulls the matching native binary from GitHub Releases, and drops it at ~/.local/bin/svg2vector.
---
Usage
Convert a single file
svg2vector convert input.svg # writes input.xml beside it
svg2vector convert input.svg -o out/icon.xml # explicit output pathConvert a whole directory
svg2vector batch ./svgs ./drawable
svg2vector batch ./svgs ./drawable -r # recurse into subdirectoriesHelp / version
svg2vector --help
svg2vector --version
svg2vector convert --help
svg2vector batch --help---
Exit codes (this is the API)
| Code | Meaning | | ---- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | 0 | Success, no warnings | | 1 | Fatal: cannot convert, or I/O error | | 2 | Converted with warnings — XML still written, some SVG features dropped| | 3 | Bad CLI arguments |
In batch mode, the process exits with the worst per-file code (max). A single warning anywhere in the batch surfaces as exit 2 overall.
stdout carries success messages only (wrote ..., batch summary like
done: N ok, M warned, K failed). stderr carries errors and "feature X is not supported" warnings. The two streams are deliberately separated so agents can capture them independently.
Agent invocation pattern
out=$(svg2vector convert icon.svg -o icon.xml 2>err.log)
rc=$?
case $rc in
0) echo "clean: $out" ;;
2) echo "converted with dropped features (see err.log)" ;;
*) echo "failed rc=$rc (see err.log)" ;;
esac---
Supported SVG features
Supported: path / rect / circle / ellipse / line / polygon /
polyline / g (transforms baked into paths) / basic fill / stroke /
opacity / linearGradient / radialGradient / clipPath.
Silently dropped (exit 2 + stderr warning): text / filter / mask /
pattern / image / external <use> / CSS @import / some advanced gradient features.
Figma users — read this
- ✅ SVGs from Figma's Export panel (literal hex colors): drop straight in.
- ⚠️ SVGs from Figma's Dev Mode (
localhost:3845/assets/...svg) embed
var(--token, fallback) CSS variables. Svg2Vector doesn't resolve those — output strokes / fills become unusable strings. Pre-process:
sed -E 's/var\(--[^,]+,\s*([^)]+)\)/\1/g' input.svg > clean.svg---
Acknowledgements
- The conversion algorithm is Android tooling's
Svg2Vector (com.android.tools:sdk-common).
- Four of the regression test fixtures are taken from the
Ashung/svg2vectordrawable issue tracker — credit to the upstream community for reporting these bugs over the years.
---
License
MIT
