Follow the common Device Setup instructions to learn how to setup your device with a developer account, which is required to start developing with the Anchor APIs.

Please refer to the common System and Hardware Requirements to ensure you meet the hardware and operating system requirements for Android development.

You can find the general specifications for your app’s AndroidManifest.xml file in Android Manifest Settings in the native development guide.

To use basic Anchor APIs (anchor creation, tracking, anchor persistence but without sharing scenarios) the following permission is required to be present in your Android Manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="com.oculus.permission.USE_ANCHOR_API" />

To use Anchor Sharing or to have your app persist anchors on Meta’s cloud storage, the following permission is required to be in your Android Manifest in addition to the above permission:

<uses-permission android:name="com.oculus.permission.IMPORT_EXPORT_IOT_MAP_DATA" />

Note: While the IMPORT_EXPORT_IOT_MAP_DATA permission is one requirement to enable anchor sharing, it’s also required that the user enable the Enhanced Spatial Services system permission on their device, otherwise the application will not be able to save or share anchors via Meta’s cloud infrastructure. This control will be prompted via a dialogue popup, and can be changed at any time by the end user under Settings > Privacy > Device Permissions > Turn on "Enhanced Spatial Services".

Note: IMPORT_EXPORT_IOT_MAP_DATA is not required in order to persist anchors.

While it’s not required, we recommend using anchor features alongside passthrough.

<uses-feature android:name="com.oculus.feature.PASSTHROUGH" android:required="true" />

Note: This setup is only required if your app requires access to User IDs.

Prior to v71, Shared Spatial Anchors required User IDs. In v71, Group Sharing was introduced as the recommended option for Shared Spatial Anchors, which does not require User IDs. If your app does not need User IDs, the following steps are not required to begin developing with Anchor APIs.

To gain access to User IDs: