The Nothing Phone 2a Plus is currently my main phone.

Prerequisites

1. Android SDK Platform-Tools
2. Google USB Driver
3. APatch

Get and patch boot.img

1. Update the phone first.
2. Get your build number. For this example, my build number is PacmanPro-U2.6-241217-1545.
3. Go to Nothing Archive 2a Plus and find your build number there.
4. Click OTA Images for your build number.
5. Download image-boot.7z. Example: PacmanPro_U2.6-241217-1545-image-boot.7z
6. Extract archive to get boot.img.
7. Install APatch on your phone.
8. Patch your boot.img using APatch. Take note of your SuperKey.

Rooting

1. Unlock the bootloader. (Backup your files, this will erase all of your data.)
   1. Enable USB debugging and OEM unlocking in Developer options.
   2. Connect phone to your computer.
   3. adb devices to allow ADB access.
   4. adb reboot bootloader to reboot to bootloader.
   5. fastboot devices to verify if the phone is connected.
   6. fastboot flashing unlock to unlock bootloader. (This will factory reset your device.)
   7. fastboot reboot to reboot device.
2. Flash patched boot.img using fastboot.
   1. adb reboot bootloader to reboot to bootloader.
   2. fastboot getvar current-slot to get current active slot.
   3. fastboot flash boot_[slot] apatch_patched_XXXXX_X.XX.X.img to flash the patched boot.img. Example with slot B: fastboot flash boot_b apatch_patched_10763_0.10.7_aobg.img
   4. fastboot reboot to reboot device.
3. Open APatch with your SuperKey to verify if APatch has been installed.

OTA Updates

1. Disable all modules. Delete all modules if upgrading to a major Android version.
2. Restore your original boot.img using fastboot. Take note of your build number.
3. Perform the OTA update.
4. Patch your boot.img based on the new build number.
5. Flash your new boot.img.
6. Enable your modules.