Cometchat Native Theming

Purpose

Teaches Claude how to theme and localize the React Native UI Kit via CometChatThemeProvider + CometChatI18nProvider. No CSS — React Native uses a JS theme object instead. This skill covers color tokens, typography, light/dark modes, per-component style overrides, the useTheme() hook for custom views, and localization (18 built-in languages, device auto-detect, custom translation overrides) via useCometChatTranslation().

Read cometchat-native-core first (the wrapper chain that includes CometChatThemeProvider) before this skill. cometchat-native-components § 13 covers per-component style={} overrides, which are a sibling concern to theming.

Ground truth: docs/ui-kit/react-native/theme.mdx, colors.mdx, component-styling.mdx, message-bubble-styling.mdx, and packages/ChatUiKit/src/theme/type.ts (the canonical type definitions).

1. How theming works (no CSS — JS theme object)

React Native has no CSS. Instead:

CometChatThemeProvider
  ↓  (provides theme via React Context)
every <CometChat*> component reads theme via internal useTheme()
  ↓
component's default styles merge with theme overrides → rendered styles

The theme object you pass has two top-level keys for light/dark variants:

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    mode: "light",      // or "dark", or omit for OS-default
    light: { color: { primary: "#F76808" } },
    dark:  { color: { primary: "#FF8A3D" } },
  }}
>
  <App />
</CometChatThemeProvider>

Style precedence (highest to lowest)

1. Component style={} prop — wins always. Per-component tweak, overrides everything.
2. Custom theme via CometChatThemeProvider — app-wide.
3. Default theme — the UI Kit's built-in palette.

So for a one-off color on a single component, use style={}. For a brand-wide change (primary color everywhere), use the theme.

Deep merge

Theme values are deeply merged with defaults — you only specify what you want to change:

theme={{
  light: {
    color: {
      primary: "#F76808",      // override just primary; everything else keeps defaults
    },
    typography: {
      heading1: { fontWeight: "700" },  // override just heading1 weight
    },
  },
}}

2. The CometChatThemeProvider

Minimum setup — follow system light/dark

import { CometChatThemeProvider } from "@cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native";

<CometChatThemeProvider>
  {/* children read the current system mode automatically */}
</CometChatThemeProvider>

Force a mode

<CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: "light" }}>{/* ... */}</CometChatThemeProvider>
<CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: "dark"  }}>{/* ... */}</CometChatThemeProvider>

App-controlled theme toggle (wire to the project's existing theme system)

If the project already has a dark-mode toggle, wire CometChatThemeProvider's mode prop to the same source. RN doesn't have CSS selectors — the React Native theme is just a value held somewhere in JS, and you forward that value to CometChat. Three common shapes:

// Pattern A — OS-driven (no toggle yet, just react to system)
import { useColorScheme } from "react-native";

function ThemedRoot({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  const scheme = useColorScheme(); // "light" | "dark" | null
  return (
    <CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: scheme === "dark" ? "dark" : "light" }}>
      {children}
    </CometChatThemeProvider>
  );
}

// Pattern B — App-controlled toggle via custom Context
const ThemeContext = createContext<{ mode: "light" | "dark"; toggle: () => void }>({
  mode: "light",
  toggle: () => {},
});

function ThemedRoot({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  const { mode } = useContext(ThemeContext);
  return (
    <CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode }}>{children}</CometChatThemeProvider>
  );
}

// Pattern C — react-native-paper (or any provider that exposes a theme)
import { useTheme } from "react-native-paper";

function ThemedRoot({ children }: { children: React.ReactNode }) {
  const paperTheme = useTheme();
  return (
    <CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: paperTheme.dark ? "dark" : "light" }}>
      {children}
    </CometChatThemeProvider>
  );
}

How to tell which pattern the project uses:

Rule: wherever the project's theme toggle writes its current state, read from THAT and forward to CometChatThemeProvider's mode prop. Don't keep two parallel sources of truth.

Don't combine Pattern A with Pattern B unless the user explicitly wants "follow OS until the user opens settings and overrides." That hybrid is legitimate but usually over-engineered for a first integration — ship Pattern B alone if the project has a toggle, Pattern A if it doesn't.

Placement in the wrapper chain

CometChatThemeProvider is one of the four required wrappers — goes right above CometChatProvider, below SafeAreaProvider (see cometchat-native-core § 3):

<GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
  <SafeAreaProvider>
    <CometChatThemeProvider theme={/* your theme */}>
      <CometChatProvider appId={...} region={...} authKey={...}>
        <YourApp />
      </CometChatProvider>
    </CometChatThemeProvider>
  </SafeAreaProvider>
</GestureHandlerRootView>

Without CometChatThemeProvider, components throw or fall back to minimal styles. Even if you don't customize anything, the wrapper is mandatory.

3. Color tokens

Every color is a hex string ("#F76808" — never "rgb(...)" or named colors).

Primary (brand accent)

Neutrals (surfaces + borders)

Background aliases

Text

Icon

Semantic (state indicators)

Bubble-specific

Static (never flip light/dark)

4. Mode: light / dark / system

Follow system

Don't pass mode — the provider reads the OS setting via useColorScheme() and re-renders on change. The user gets automatic dark mode when they flip the system setting.

<CometChatThemeProvider>{/* ... */}</CometChatThemeProvider>

Force a specific mode

<CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: "dark" }}>{/* ... */}</CometChatThemeProvider>

Toggle controlled by your app

If your app has its own dark-mode switch (stored in user prefs or Redux), drive mode from that state:

const [darkMode, setDarkMode] = useState(false);
// ...
<CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ mode: darkMode ? "dark" : "light" }}>
  <Switch value={darkMode} />
  <App />
</CometChatThemeProvider>

The provider re-renders children and they pick up the new theme immediately.

Dark-mode palette

Override the dark branch of the theme for a custom dark palette:

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: { color: { primary: "#6852D6" } },
    dark:  { color: { primary: "#A594F3", background1: "#0B0B0F" } },
  }}
>

5. Typography overrides

The theme has a typography block with tokens per role:

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: {
      typography: {
        heading1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Bold", fontSize: 28, fontWeight: "700" },
        heading2: { fontFamily: "Inter-SemiBold", fontSize: 20 },
        body1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular", fontSize: 15 },
        caption1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular", fontSize: 12 },
        // ... etc
      },
    },
  }}
>

Common tokens: heading1, heading2, heading3, heading4, body1, body2, caption1, caption2, button1, button2. Each follows the RN TextStyle shape — fontFamily, fontSize, fontWeight, lineHeight, letterSpacing.

Custom font setup

React Native font loading is NOT covered by the UI Kit — use your project's existing font system:

• Expo: useFonts() from expo-font, load before rendering the provider
• Bare RN: add fonts to ios/<App>/Info.plist UIAppFonts + android/app/src/main/assets/fonts/ + run npx react-native-asset

Only reference a fontFamily in the theme once the font is actually loaded — otherwise iOS shows the system default and Android crashes.

6. Per-component style blocks

Beyond color / typography, the theme has per-component style blocks for fine control. These sit inside the light / dark branches:

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: {
      // component-specific overrides
      conversationStyles: {
        containerStyle: { backgroundColor: "#FAFAFA" },
      },
      messageHeaderStyles: {
        titleStyle: { fontSize: 18 },
      },
      messageListStyles: {
        containerStyle: { padding: 8 },
        sendBubbleStyle: {
          backgroundColor: "#F76808",
          textStyle: { color: "#FFFFFF" },
        },
        receiveBubbleStyle: {
          backgroundColor: "#F5F5F5",
          textStyle: { color: "#141414" },
        },
      },
      messageComposerStyles: {
        containerStyle: { backgroundColor: "#FFF", borderTopWidth: 1, borderTopColor: "#E8E8E8" },
      },
    },
  }}
>

Common component-style keys: conversationStyles, usersStyles, groupsStyles, groupMembersStyles, messageHeaderStyles, messageListStyles, messageComposerStyles, threadHeaderStyles, callButtonsStyles, callLogsStyles.

Each block has the same nested shape as the component's style prop (see cometchat-native-components § 13).

Source of truth for available keys

The exact list of style keys per component is authoritative in the kit's type file:

packages/ChatUiKit/src/theme/type.ts

If you're overriding a component style and the TypeScript compiler complains about an unknown key, check that file (or use useTheme() + autocomplete in your IDE).

7. Common recipes

Match a brand color (most common)

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{ light: { color: { primary: "#FF6B35" } } }}
>
  <App />
</CometChatThemeProvider>

This single line changes the outgoing message bubble color, send button color, active tab indicator, and every primary accent in the UI. The extendedPrimary50–900 tints are auto-derived from primary.

Dark mode + custom brand

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: { color: { primary: "#FF6B35" } },
    dark:  { color: { primary: "#FF8F66", background1: "#1A1A1A" } },
  }}
>
  <App />
</CometChatThemeProvider>

Custom message-bubble colors

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: {
      color: {
        sendBubbleBackground: "#FF6B35",
        sendBubbleText: "#FFFFFF",
        receiveBubbleBackground: "#F0F0F0",
        receiveBubbleText: "#1A1A1A",
      },
    },
  }}
>

Overriding the bubble tokens directly is cleaner than doing it via messageListStyles.sendBubbleStyle — the tokens apply consistently everywhere bubbles render (main list + thread panel + search results).

Custom font across the whole UI

1. Load font (Expo useFonts or bare npx react-native-asset)
2. Override the typography block:

<CometChatThemeProvider
  theme={{
    light: {
      typography: {
        heading1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Bold" },
        heading2: { fontFamily: "Inter-SemiBold" },
        heading3: { fontFamily: "Inter-SemiBold" },
        heading4: { fontFamily: "Inter-Medium" },
        body1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular" },
        body2: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular" },
        caption1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular" },
        caption2: { fontFamily: "Inter-Regular" },
        button1: { fontFamily: "Inter-SemiBold" },
        button2: { fontFamily: "Inter-Medium" },
      },
    },
  }}
>

8. Reading the theme in custom views

When you write a custom slot view (e.g. a TitleView on CometChatMessageHeader) and want your custom component to match the theme, use the useTheme() hook:

import { useTheme } from "@cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native";

function CustomTitle({ user }: any) {
  const theme = useTheme();
  return (
    <Text style={{
      color: theme.color.textPrimary,
      fontFamily: theme.typography.heading3.fontFamily,
      fontSize: theme.typography.heading3.fontSize,
    }}>
      {user.getName()}
    </Text>
  );
}

// Wire into a header:
<CometChatMessageHeader user={selectedUser} TitleView={(user) => <CustomTitle user={user} />} />

This is how you write custom views that automatically follow dark mode — by reading tokens from useTheme() instead of hardcoding colors.

9. Localization — CometChatI18nProvider

Theming and localization are separate concerns but ship together. If your users aren't all English-speaking, wire CometChatI18nProvider alongside CometChatThemeProvider. Every string rendered by the UI Kit (message-action labels, empty states, system messages, alerts) flows through the i18n layer.

9a. Built-in locales

The UI Kit ships translations for 18 languages out of the box:

de, en, es, fr, hi, hu, it, ja, ko, lt, ms, nl, pt, ru, sv, tr, zh, zh-tw

9b. Wrapper chain with i18n — five wrappers, not four

CometChatI18nProvider goes above CometChatThemeProvider (theme is a child of i18n, not the other way around):

import { CometChatI18nProvider, CometChatThemeProvider } from "@cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native";
import { GestureHandlerRootView } from "react-native-gesture-handler";
import { SafeAreaProvider } from "react-native-safe-area-context";

<GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
  <SafeAreaProvider>
    <CometChatI18nProvider>
      <CometChatThemeProvider>
        <CometChatProvider>
          <YourApp />
        </CometChatProvider>
      </CometChatThemeProvider>
    </CometChatI18nProvider>
  </SafeAreaProvider>
</GestureHandlerRootView>

9c. Auto-detect (default)

With no props, CometChatI18nProvider reads the device locale via react-native-localize and picks the matching language if available, falling back to English. No setup needed beyond the wrapper.

Install react-native-localize (required peer dep for auto-detect):

npx expo install react-native-localize     # Expo managed
# or
npm install react-native-localize && cd ios && pod install && cd ..   # bare RN

9d. Force a specific language

Override the device default via selectedLanguage:

<CometChatI18nProvider selectedLanguage="ja">

If the user's app has its own language preference (stored in settings / Redux / MMKV), drive selectedLanguage from that state. The provider re-renders children on change so strings update immediately.

9e. Fallback behavior

Chain: selectedLanguage (if set + available) → device language (if autoDetectLanguage=true) → fallbackLanguage (default 'en').

<CometChatI18nProvider
  selectedLanguage={user.preferredLanguage}   // from your app state
  autoDetectLanguage={true}                    // fall back to device language
  fallbackLanguage="en"                        // final fallback
>

If the user's preferred language isn't bundled AND there's no custom translation for it, the provider logs a warning and uses the fallback.

9f. Custom translations — override or add languages

Pass a translations object to override specific keys in an existing locale, or add a brand-new locale the UI Kit doesn't ship:

const translations = {
  en: {
    // Override a built-in English string
    "NO_MESSAGES_YET": "Say hello to start the conversation!",
    "SENT": "Delivered",
  },
  th: {
    // Add a new language — Thai
    "NO_MESSAGES_YET": "ยังไม่มีข้อความ",
    "SENT": "ส่งแล้ว",
    // ...provide the full key set
  },
};

<CometChatI18nProvider selectedLanguage="th" translations={translations}>

The translation schema is a flat { KEY: "string" } map. Keys are screaming-snake-case (NO_MESSAGES_YET, MESSAGE_COMPOSER_MENTION_ALL, TRANSLATE, etc.). Full key list lives at packages/ChatUiKit/src/shared/resources/CometChatLocalizeNew/resources/en/translation.json in the UI Kit source — grep for "KEY": there to find the exact key for a string you want to override.

9g. Reading the language inside custom views

When you write a custom slot view and need the current language (or want to translate your own strings using the same key set), use the useCometChatTranslation hook:

import { useCometChatTranslation } from "@cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native";

function CustomEmptyState() {
  const { t, language } = useCometChatTranslation();
  return <Text>{t("NO_MESSAGES_YET")}</Text>;
}

The hook also exposes availableLanguages — useful for building a language-picker UI.

9h. Common pitfall — i18n outside the provider

Calling useCometChatTranslation() from a component rendered OUTSIDE CometChatI18nProvider (common when a custom view mounts at the navigator root instead of inside the chat subtree) logs "useCometChatTranslation used outside provider, using fallback translations" and falls through to English. Check your wrapper chain — i18n must wrap every component that reads translations, which is the whole app tree in practice.

10. Anti-patterns

1. Don't pass non-hex colors. "rgb(...)", "rgba(...)", named colors, or hsl(...) will break the kit's internal color math (used to derive extendedPrimary). Use "#RRGGBB" or "#RRGGBBAA" (opacity via alpha).

2. Don't override staticBlack / staticWhite. They're "static" for a reason — used in places where a specific absolute color is needed regardless of theme (overlays, badges on fixed-color avatars). Overriding them breaks visual consistency.

3. Don't override extended primary colors unless you need to. extendedPrimary50–900 are auto-derived from primary. Override them only if the auto-derivation doesn't match your brand's tints — and then override the full range, not just one level.

4. Don't wrap CometChatThemeProvider inside a screen. It belongs at the app root, once. Re-wrapping per screen creates hydration-like flashes on navigation and breaks dark-mode switching.

5. Don't mix theme overrides and per-component style={} for the same property. style={} wins — the theme override becomes dead code. Pick one: theme for app-wide, style={} for one-offs.

6. Don't reference an unloaded font in typography. iOS silently falls back to system default; Android crashes. Gate the provider on font loading:

   // Expo example
   const [fontsLoaded] = useFonts({ "Inter-Bold": require("./assets/Inter-Bold.ttf") });
   if (!fontsLoaded) return null;
   return (
     <CometChatThemeProvider theme={{ light: { typography: { heading1: { fontFamily: "Inter-Bold" } } } }}>
       <App />
     </CometChatThemeProvider>
   );
   

7. Don't bypass the theme via useColorScheme() in a custom view. Call useTheme() from @cometchat/chat-uikit-react-native — that gives you the current theme (including any overrides you set). useColorScheme() only gives you the raw system mode.

11. Verifying a theme change

After changing the theme:

1. Hard-reload the Metro bundler (not Fast Refresh — theme context sometimes doesn't update on Fast Refresh)
2. Send a message — check the outgoing bubble color matches primary / sendBubbleBackground
3. Toggle dark mode on the device (iOS: Settings → Display; Android: Settings → Display → Dark theme)
4. Check that both modes render without reloading the app

If something looks unstyled or crashes:

• Check the color is a hex string (not a name or rgb)
• Check the font (if you overrode typography) is actually loaded
• Check the override key matches the type in packages/ChatUiKit/src/theme/type.ts

Skill routing reference