I'm using Cordova in Visual Studio 2017, and I installed the Android SDK (API level 23), but I wonder if when compiling using this API, the application will be backward compatible, like Android 4.2 for example.
To the best of my knowledge, I'm not using any API-specific feature 23.
To set the minimum version of the SDK, you need to enter the Cordova settings and specify the value of the level at which you want to use it. Check the config.xml file located at the root of your project. Here's how it should look if you want it to be compatible with Android 4.2, which in this case is API Level 17:
<preference name="android-minSdkVersion" value="17" />
See more details in the documentation .