Android

Root a Pixel with Magisk so you can recover the real on-device artifacts DVMA writes. Work through these pages in order:

Root with Magisk - the full manual flow (GUI or terminal-only): unlock, patch the stock boot image, flash it, verify root.
Autonomous script (root_pixel.sh) - the repo helper that auto-fetches Magisk + the matching factory image and can flash for you.
Recover a bricked device - dm-verity/AVB notes, bootloop triage, and a full re-flash back to stock.
Verify Android artifacts - pull the artifact with adb (debuggable build) or su/frida (rooted).

Two steps can’t be scripted or downloaded for you. Unlocking the bootloader (fastboot flashing unlock) needs a physical on-device confirmation and wipes the phone, and the boot image you patch must come from the factory build that exactly matches ro.build.fingerprint. So you always: (1) unlock by hand, (2) download the matching factory image yourself (or let the script fetch + verify it). The script automates everything between those - extract → patch → (optionally) flash → pull.

The one per-device difference

Magisk is systemless root: patch your device’s stock boot image with the Magisk app, then flash it via fastboot. The only per-device difference is which partition you patch, and that’s decided by the Android version the device launched with (not its model number):

Pixel 6 / 6 Pro / 6a launched on Android 12 (legacy GKI) → patch boot.
Pixel 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and up launched on Android 13+ (GKI 2.0) → patch init_boot. (Under GKI 2.0, boot holds only the raw kernel; the ramdisk Magisk needs moved to init_boot.)

Everything else in the flow is identical. The root_pixel.sh script auto-detects the right partition from the factory image, so it works across the whole Pixel line, not just the two verified below.

Docs: https://topjohnwu.github.io/Magisk/install.html · Releases: https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases · Pixel factory images: https://developers.google.com/android/images

Device	Codename	SoC	Launch Android	Partition to patch/flash
Pixel 6 / 6 Pro / 6a	`oriole` / `raven` / `bluejay`	Tensor G1	12	`boot`
Pixel 7 / 7 Pro / 7a	`panther` / `cheetah` / `lynx`	Tensor G2	13	`init_boot`
Pixel 8 / 8 Pro / 8a	`shiba` / `husky` / `akita`	Tensor G3	14	`init_boot`
Pixel 9 and up	(varies)	Tensor G4+	14/15+	`init_boot`

Verified on the Pixel 8a (akita) and Pixel 6a (bluejay). Other Pixels follow the same launch-version rule and the script handles them automatically, but they haven’t been hand-tested here.

Start with Root with Magisk →.