react-native-expo

name	react-native-expo
description	Build React Native apps with Expo — navigation, native modules, OTA updates, and EAS build/deploy
allowed-tools	["Read","Write","Bash","Grep"]
effort	high

When to activate

• Building React Native apps with Expo or bare React Native
• Setting up Expo Router for file-based navigation
• Configuring EAS Build and EAS Submit for CI/CD
• Implementing native modules or config plugins
• Handling OTA updates with EAS Update or CodePush

When NOT to use

• For Flutter development (use flutter-widgets)
• For native iOS/Android only apps
• For web-only React apps

Instructions

1. Initialize with Expo. npx create-expo-app with TypeScript template. Use Expo Router for file-based navigation.
2. Configure navigation. Expo Router: file-based routes in app/ directory. Tab layouts, stack screens, modal routes.
3. State management. Zustand for global state, React Query/TanStack Query for server state. Avoid Redux unless team already uses it.
4. Native modules. Use Expo config plugins for native dependencies. Prebuild when custom native code needed: npx expo prebuild.
5. Performance. FlashList over FlatList, Hermes engine enabled, image optimization with expo-image, lazy load screens.
6. OTA updates. Configure EAS Update channels (production, staging, preview). Test updates before pushing to production.
7. Build and deploy. EAS Build for cloud builds. EAS Submit for store uploads. Configure build profiles in eas.json.

Example

// eas.json
{
  "build": {
    "development": { "developmentClient": true, "distribution": "internal" },
    "preview": { "distribution": "internal", "channel": "preview" },
    "production": { "channel": "production", "autoIncrement": true }
  }
}