Cannot start new android project with the same codebase that already works for iOS

Capacitor
1

npx cap sync ios works fine, but npx cap sync android has these errors

% npx cap sync android

> capacitor-app@1.0.0 android
> npx cap sync android && npx cap open android

localIp is 192.168.1.213
[warn] Cannot copy web assets from www to android/app/src/main/assets/public
       Web asset directory specified by webDir does not exist. This is not an error because server.url is set in config.
✖ Creating capacitor.config.json in android/app/src/main/assets - failed!
✖ copy android - failed!
[error] Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open
        '/Users/me/Projects/my-app/android/app/src/main/assets/capacitor.config.json'
✔ Updating Android plugins in 396.54μs
[info] Found 2 Capacitor plugins for android:
       @capacitor/camera@7.0.2
       @capacitor/splash-screen@7.0.3
✖ update android - failed!
[error] Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open
        '/Users/me/Projects/my-app/android/app/src/main/assets/capacitor.plugins.json'

What could be causing them and how could I fix them?

2

I did

mkdir -p android/app/src/main/assets

and now it all works.