Cordova → Capacitor

Capacitor is the modern successor to Cordova from the same Ionic team. This guide migrates an existing Cordova app to Capacitor in place — same web codebase, new native shell — and re-mounts Mushi using the @mushi-mushi/capacitor plugin.

The official upstream guide is capacitorjs.com/cordova ; this page is the Mushi-aware companion to it.

Why migrate

• Cordova plugin maintenance has slowed considerably since 2023.
• Capacitor uses standard WKWebView / WebView instead of Cordova’s managed shell — easier to debug, plays nicer with modern web platform features.
• Capacitor’s native projects are first-class (ios/, android/) — you can edit them like any other Xcode / Android Studio project.
• Mushi ships a first-party Capacitor plugin (@mushi-mushi/capacitor); the Cordova SDK has been in maintenance mode since 0.5.

Prerequisites

• Working Cordova app that builds for at least one platform.
• Node 18+ and the platform SDKs (Xcode 15+ for iOS, Android Studio Hedgehog+ for Android).
• Mushi project already created — we keep the same projectId and apiKey.

API mapping (Cordova plugins → Capacitor)

Most popular Cordova plugins have a 1:1 Capacitor counterpart:

For anything not listed, search the Capacitor Plugins  catalog or the Capawesome community plugins .

Migration checklist

Common gotchas

• iOS scheme defaults changed. Capacitor uses capacitor:// by default; if your app stores anything under origin-bound web APIs (cookies, IndexedDB), set server.iosScheme: "ionic" in capacitor.config.json to keep ionic:// and avoid wiping user data.
• Splash hide timing. Capacitor’s @capacitor/splash-screen doesn’t auto-hide — call SplashScreen.hide() once your app is mounted, or set launchAutoHide: true in config.
• whitelist plugin gone. Capacitor uses native ATS (iOS) and usesCleartextTraffic (Android) instead of Cordova’s whitelist. Add your Mushi endpoint and any other API hosts to those if you allow non-HTTPS.

Rollback

You branched in step 1, so:

git checkout main
# Native projects are gitignored if you followed Capacitor's recommendations,
# so deleting the migration branch leaves your Cordova app untouched.

If you committed and pushed before discovering a regression, revert the merge commit; Cordova builds will start working again immediately.

Related guides

• Capacitor → React Native — once you’re on Capacitor, the next move (if you want it) is well-trodden.
• @mushi-mushi/capacitor SDK reference
• Capacitor → bottom-dock notes — keep the Mushi widget above your tab bar.

References

• Capacitor: Cordova → Capacitor migration 
• Capacitor Plugins catalog 
• Capawesome community plugins