JetBrains: Start Your Next KMP App With Kotlin Toolchain 0.13
Original post Start Your Next KMP App With Kotlin Toolchain 0.13
Article Summary
Anton Makeev from JetBrains just announced that Kotlin Toolchain 0.13 is now the recommended starting point for new KMP projects. This is a major shift from the traditional Gradle-based setup most teams know.
JetBrains has promoted their Kotlin Toolchain from alpha to production-ready for new Kotlin Multiplatform projects. The toolchain provides a unified CLI and declarative configuration for building across JVM, Android, iOS, web, and desktop platforms. Version 0.13 introduces significant improvements to onboarding, iOS setup, and AI agent integration.
Key Takeaways
- Single CLI handles environment setup, building, testing across all platforms automatically
- AI agents generate Kotlin Toolchain projects more reliably while using fewer tokens
- iOS setup now auto-downloads simulators and runtimes with clear diagnostics
- Swift Package Manager dependencies now supported for Apple platforms
- Kotlin/Native compiler caches speed up rebuilds by reusing compiled dependencies
Kotlin Toolchain 0.13 eliminates the complexity of multi-platform setup with automated environment configuration and a single entry point for all build tasks.
Continue reading
Kotlin Blog
Jan 13, 2026
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What This Article Covers
When developers imported Android projects into the IDE, the SDK components weren't set up automatically like they were during CLI builds. This caused errors before anyone ran a build.
JetBrains made the CLI and IDE work the same way. The Kotlin Toolchain now automatically provisions missing Android SDK components when you import a project. It also added stricter validation to stop accidental publishing with sample IDs like com.example.app.
Kotlin/Native compiler caches now reuse compiled dependencies across builds and projects. Per-file caches speed up the edit-build-run cycle for native apps because only affected code gets rebuilt during linking.
This page summarizes “Start Your Next KMP App With Kotlin Toolchain 0.13” by JetBrains, published Oct 1, 2026. All credit for the original work goes to the authors.
