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Learn how to install and configure expo-dev-client in your existing React Native project.
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The following guide explains how to install and configure expo-dev-client
in an existing React Native project.
If you're starting with a new project, create it using the with-dev-client
template:
-
npx create-expo-app -e with-dev-client
To use expo-dev-client
in a project that uses CNG, see Create a development build.
The expo
package must be installed and configured. If you created your project with npx @react-native-community/cli@latest init
and do not have any other Expo libraries installed, you will need to install Expo modules before proceeding.
1
Add the expo-dev-client
library to your package.json:
-
npx expo install expo-dev-client
If your project has an ios directory on disk, run the following command to fully install the native code for expo-dev-client
:
-
npx pod-install
If your project doesn't have an ios directory, you can skip this step.
2
Expo CLI uses a deep link to launch your project, and it's also useful if you use plan to use expo-dev-client
for launching preview updates if you have added a custom deep link scheme to your project.
If you haven't configured a scheme
for your app yet to support deep linking, then use uri-scheme
library to do this for you.
# List your project's schemes
-
npx uri-scheme list
# Add a scheme to your project
-
npx uri-scheme add your-scheme
For more information, see the uri-scheme
library.
3
For certain types of errors, you can obtain more helpful error messages when using expo-dev-client
. To turn this on, import expo-dev-client
in the project's index file. Make sure that the import statement is executed early, before your application's JS code is imported (place the import above import App from './App'
).
import 'expo-dev-client';
%%placeholder-start%%... %%placeholder-end%%
import App from './App';
For more information, see Error handling.
4
Create a debug build of your app using the tools of your choice. For example, you can do this locally with Expo CLI or in the cloud with EAS Build.