Mobile Toolchain

Mobile Toolchain

Modern cross-platform mobile development with TypeScript, focusing on React Native ecosystem and emerging alternatives.

Recommended Stack: Expo (Default)

Why Expo (2025):

• Fastest setup to production (minutes, not days)
• Managed workflow (no Xcode/Android Studio for most use cases)
• OTA updates (deploy fixes without app store approval)
• EAS Build (cloud builds for iOS/Android)
• Excellent DX with hot reload and debugging
• Large ecosystem of quality libraries

# Create new Expo app
npx create-expo-app my-app --template

# Start development
cd my-app
npm run ios     # iOS simulator
npm run android # Android emulator
npm run web     # Web (bonus!)

When to Use Expo

✅ MVPs and startups (fastest time-to-market) ✅ Standard mobile features (camera, GPS, notifications) ✅ Teams without native development experience ✅ Projects needing OTA updates ✅ Cross-platform web+mobile

Expo Limitations

⚠️ Can't use arbitrary native modules (must use Expo SDK or create custom dev client) ⚠️ Reliant on Expo services for builds (EAS) ⚠️ Slightly larger app bundles than pure native

Alternative: React Native (Bare Workflow)

When to use:

• Need custom native modules not in Expo SDK
• Require deep platform-specific customization
• Have native development expertise in-house
• Very large apps where bundle size critical

# Create React Native app
npx @react-native-community/cli init MyApp --template react-native-template-typescript

# Requires Xcode (Mac) and Android Studio setup

React Native Setup Requirements

• iOS: Xcode 16+, CocoaPods, macOS only
• Android: Android Studio, Java JDK, Android SDK

Emerging: Tauri for Mobile

Experimental (2025) - Very lightweight alternative:

• Uses OS WebView (extremely small bundles)
• Rust backend (security + performance)
• Web technologies for UI (React, Vue, Svelte, etc.)
• Still maturing for mobile (Tauri 2.0+)

# Create Tauri mobile app
npm create tauri-app@latest

When to Consider Tauri

✅ Extremely small app size critical (<5MB) ✅ Team has Rust expertise ✅ Web-first app with mobile version ⚠️ Smaller ecosystem than React Native ⚠️ Less battle-tested on mobile

Toolchain Comparison

Project Structure (Expo)

my-app/
├── app/                  # App Router (file-based routing)
│   ├── (tabs)/          # Tab navigator
│   │   ├── index.tsx    # Home screen
│   │   └── settings.tsx # Settings screen
│   ├── _layout.tsx      # Root layout
│   └── +not-found.tsx   # 404 screen
├── components/          # Reusable components
├── hooks/              # Custom hooks
├── constants/          # Colors, sizes, etc.
├── assets/             # Images, fonts
├── app.json            # Expo configuration
└── package.json

Essential Libraries

# Navigation (built-in with Expo Router)
# Already included

# State Management
npm install zustand

# Forms
npm install react-hook-form zod

# API Calls
npm install @tanstack/react-query

# Icons
npm install @expo/vector-icons

# Styling
npm install nativewind  # Tailwind for React Native
npx expo install tailwindcss

Testing Strategy

# Unit Testing
npm install --save-dev jest @testing-library/react-native

# E2E Testing
npm install --save-dev detox

Jest configuration:

// jest.config.js
module.exports = {
  preset: 'jest-expo',
  transformIgnorePatterns: [
    'node_modules/(?!((jest-)?react-native|@react-native(-community)?)|expo(nent)?|@expo(nent)?/.*|@expo-google-fonts/.*|react-navigation|@react-navigation/.*|@unimodules/.*|unimodules|sentry-expo|native-base|react-native-svg)'
  ],
}

Quality Gates Integration

# .github/workflows/mobile-ci.yml
name: Mobile CI

on: [pull_request]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
        with:
          node-version: 22
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npm run lint
      - run: npm run typecheck
      - run: npm test

  build-ios:
    runs-on: macos-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx expo prebuild --platform ios
      - run: npx expo run:ios --configuration Release

  build-android:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: actions/setup-node@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx expo prebuild --platform android
      - run: npx expo run:android --variant release

EAS Build & Deploy

# Install EAS CLI
npm install -g eas-cli

# Login to Expo
eas login

# Configure project
eas build:configure

# Build for both platforms
eas build --platform all

# Submit to app stores
eas submit --platform ios
eas submit --platform android

eas.json:

{
  "build": {
    "development": {
      "developmentClient": true,
      "distribution": "internal"
    },
    "preview": {
      "distribution": "internal",
      "android": { "buildType": "apk" }
    },
    "production": {
      "distribution": "store"
    }
  }
}

OTA Updates

# Publish update (no app store review needed for JS/assets)
eas update --branch production --message "Fix login bug"

# Users get update on next app launch

Performance Best Practices

• Use React.memo() for expensive components
• Implement FlatList with getItemLayout for known sizes
• Avoid inline functions in render
• Use Hermes JS engine (default in Expo 50+)
• Lazy load screens with React.lazy() + Suspense
• Optimize images with expo-image

Native Module Integration

// Using Expo Modules API
import * as Camera from 'expo-camera'
import * as Location from 'expo-location'
import * as Notifications from 'expo-notifications'

// Request permissions
const { status } = await Camera.requestCameraPermissionsAsync()
const location = await Location.getCurrentPositionAsync()
await Notifications.scheduleNotificationAsync({
  content: { title: 'Hello!' },
  trigger: { seconds: 60 },
})

Recommendation Flow

New mobile project:
├─ Standard features, fast launch → Expo ✅
├─ Need custom native code → React Native (bare)
└─ Tiny bundle size critical → Tauri (experimental)

Existing React Native project:
└─ Consider migrating to Expo (easier than you think!)

When agents design mobile apps, they should:

• Default to Expo for new projects (fastest, best DX)
• Use Expo Router for navigation (file-based routing)
• Apply quality-gates skill for testing/CI setup
• Use React Native Paper or NativeBase for UI components
• Integrate structured-logging skill for error tracking
• Plan OTA update strategy from the start
• Support both iOS and Android unless explicitly single-platform