How to get preview in composable functions that depend on a view model?

This is exactly one of the reasons why the view model is passed with a default value. In the preview, you can pass a test object:

@Preview
@Composable
private fun HomeScreenPreview() {
    val viewModel = HomeViewModel()
    // setup viewModel as you need it to be in the preview
    HomeScreen(viewModel = viewModel, navigateToDetailsAction = {}, openCardDetailsAction = {})
}

Since you have a repository, you can do the same thing you would do to test the view model.

1. Create interface for CityRepository

interface CityRepositoryI {
    val allCities: List<City>

    suspend fun addCity(city: City)
    suspend fun updateCity(city: City)
    suspend fun deleteCity(city: City)
    suspend fun getCityById(id: Int)
}

2. Implement it for CityRepository:

@ViewModelScoped
class CityRepository @Inject constructor(appDatabase: AppDatabase) : CityRepositoryI {
    private val dao by lazy { appDatabase.getCityDao() }

    override val allCities by lazy { dao.getAllCities() }

    override suspend fun addCity(city: City) = dao.insert(city)

    override suspend fun updateCity(city: City) = dao.update(city)

    override suspend fun deleteCity(city: City) = dao.delete(city)

    override suspend fun getCityById(id: Int) = dao.getCityById(id)
}

3. Create FakeCityRepository for testing purposes:

class FakeCityRepository : CityRepositoryI {
    // predefined cities for testing
    val cities = listOf(
        City(1)
    ).toMutableStateList()

    override val allCities by lazy { cities }

    override suspend fun addCity(city: City) {
        cities.add(city)
    }

    override suspend fun updateCity(city: City){
        val index = cities.indexOfFirst { it.id == city.id }
        cities[index] = city
    }

    override suspend fun deleteCity(city: City) {
        cities.removeAll { it.id == city.id }
    }

    override suspend fun getCityById(id: Int) = cities.first { it.id == id }
}

So you can pass it into your view model: HomeViewModel(FakeCityRepository())

You can do the same with AppDatabase instead of a repository, it all depends on your needs. Check out more about Hilt testing

p.s. I’m not sure if this will build, since I don’t have some of your classes, but you should have caught the idea.