Resources

Every R.* reference resolved during render — drawables, strings, colours, dimens, plurals, attrs, and theme attributes — with the resolved value and the source qualifier (default vs. night, w600dp, locale-specific, …).

At a glance


Kind	`resources/used`
Schema version	1
Modules	`:data-resources-core` (published) · `:data-resources-connector`
Render mode	default
Cost	low
Token usage	~175 tok per query (`resources/used` ~610 chars). See token usage.
Transport	inline
Platforms	Android

What it answers

Which R.drawable.* / R.string.* / R.color.* references actually got read while rendering this preview?
Which qualifier folder did each value come from (e.g. values-night/colors.xml vs. values/colors.xml)?
Are any references dead — declared but never read on this preview?
Did a refactor accidentally introduce a reference to a removed resource id?

What it does NOT answer

It does not enumerate resources the preview could reference under a different configuration (different locale, dark mode) — only what was read on this render.
It does not validate XML schema correctness — that is aapt2’s job.
Compose Multiplatform resources flow through a different path; this kind is Android-only.

Use cases

Jump-to-source from VS Code: click a colour in the rendered PNG, get the R.color.foo it came from and the values*/colors.xml it was defined in.
Dead-code audits: render every preview and diff resources/used against the union of declared R.* ids.
Verify a string id rename was thorough — every preview that previously cited R.string.old_name now cites R.string.new_name.

Payload shape

ResourcesUsedPayload, ResourceUsedReference in :data-resources-core.

// resources/used
{
  "references": [
    { "type": "string", "name": "submit", "id": "0x7f110042",
      "value": "Submit",
      "sourceFile": "values/strings.xml" },
    { "type": "color", "name": "primary", "id": "0x7f060010",
      "value": "#FF6750A4",
      "sourceFile": "values-night/colors.xml" }
  ]
}

Enabling

Producer runs once the Resources extension is publicly enabled. CLI / Gradle output: build/compose-previews/data/<id>/resources-used.json.

The plugin also separately renders Android XML resources directly (vector drawables, adaptive icons, animated-vector drawables) — that is a different feature; see skills/compose-preview/design/RESOURCE_PREVIEWS.md.

Companion products

Strings — text/strings for the actual drawn copy resolved from R.string.* references.
Theme — compose/theme for the Material 3 tokens that consumed R.color.* values.
Fonts — fonts/used for the typeface side of the same render.