React Native (Expo) Installation and Setup

Jazz supports Expo through the dedicated jazz-tools/expo entry, which is specifically designed for Expo applications. If you're building for React Native without Expo, please refer to the React Native guide instead.

Jazz requires an Expo development build using Expo Prebuild for native code. It is not compatible with Expo Go. Jazz also supports the New Architecture.

Tested with:

"expo": "~53.0.0",
"react-native": "0.79.2",
"react": "18.3.1"

Installation

Create a new project

(Skip this step if you already have one)

npx create-expo-app -e with-tailwindcss my-jazz-app
cd my-jazz-app
npx expo prebuild

Install dependencies

# Expo dependencies
npx expo install expo-linking expo-secure-store expo-sqlite expo-file-system @react-native-community/netinfo expo-image-manipulator

# React Native polyfills
npm i -S @azure/core-asynciterator-polyfill react-native-url-polyfill readable-stream react-native-get-random-values @bacons/text-decoder react-native-fast-encoder

# Jazz dependencies
npm i -S jazz-tools
Note
  • Requires at least Node.js v20.
  • Hermes has added support for atob and btoa in React Native 0.74. If you are using earlier versions, you may also need to polyfill atob and btoa in your package.json. See our Troubleshooting Guide for quick fixes.

Fix incompatible dependencies

If you encounter incompatible dependencies, you can try to fix them with the following command:

npx expo install --fix

Configure Metro

Regular repositories

If you are not working within a monorepo, create a new file metro.config.js in the root of your project with the following content:

// @noErrors: 2304
// metro.config.js
const { getDefaultConfig } = require("expo/metro-config");
const { withNativeWind } = require("nativewind/metro");

const config = getDefaultConfig(__dirname);

config.resolver.sourceExts = ["mjs", "js", "json", "ts", "tsx", "cjs"];
config.resolver.requireCycleIgnorePatterns = [/(^|\/|\\)node_modules($|\/|\\)/];

module.exports = withNativeWind(config, { input: "./src/global.css" });

Monorepos

For monorepos, use the following metro.config.js:

// @noErrors: 2304
// metro.config.js
const { getDefaultConfig } = require("expo/metro-config");
const { FileStore } = require("metro-cache");
const { withNativeWind } = require("nativewind/metro");

const path = require("path");

// eslint-disable-next-line no-undef
const projectRoot = __dirname;
const workspaceRoot = path.resolve(projectRoot, "../..");

const config = getDefaultConfig(projectRoot);

config.watchFolders = [workspaceRoot];
config.resolver.nodeModulesPaths = [
  path.resolve(projectRoot, "node_modules"),
  path.resolve(workspaceRoot, "node_modules"),
];
config.resolver.sourceExts = ["mjs", "js", "json", "ts", "tsx", "cjs"];
config.resolver.requireCycleIgnorePatterns = [/(^|\/|\\)node_modules($|\/|\\)/];
config.cacheStores = [
  new FileStore({
    root: path.join(projectRoot, "node_modules", ".cache", "metro"),
  }),
];

module.exports = withNativeWind(config, { input: "./src/global.css" });

Additional monorepo configuration (for pnpm)

If you're using pnpm, you'll need to make sure that your expo app's package.json has this:

// package.json
{
  "main": "index.js",
  ...
}

For more information, refer to this Expo monorepo example.

Add polyfills

Create a file polyfills.js at the project root with the following content:

// @noErrors: 7016
// polyfills.js
import { polyfillGlobal } from 'react-native/Libraries/Utilities/PolyfillFunctions';

import { ReadableStream } from "readable-stream";
polyfillGlobal("ReadableStream", () => ReadableStream); // polyfill ReadableStream
import TextEncoder from 'react-native-fast-encoder'
import "@azure/core-asynciterator-polyfill"; // polyfill Async Iterator
import "@bacons/text-decoder/install"; // polyfill Text Decoder
import 'react-native-get-random-values'; // polyfill getRandomValues

// The 'react-native-fast-encoder' package does not automatically install the polyfill, so we need to do it manually
const originalTextEncoder = new window.TextEncoder()
window.TextEncoder = TextEncoder;
window.TextDecoder = TextEncoder;
TextEncoder.prototype.encodeInto = (source: string, destination: Uint8Array<ArrayBufferLike>) => {
  return originalTextEncoder.encodeInto(source, destination)
}

Update _layout.tsx:

// _layout.tsx
import "../global.css";
import "../../polyfills";
import { Slot } from "expo-router";

export default function Layout() {
	return <Slot />;
}

Lastly, ensure that the "main" field in your package.json points to index.js:

// package.json
{
  "main": "index.js",
  ...
}

Authentication

Jazz provides authentication to help users access their data across multiple devices. For details on implementing authentication with Expo, check our Authentication Overview guide and see the Expo Clerk Demo for a complete example.

Next Steps

Now that you've set up your Expo project for Jazz, you'll need to:

  1. Set up the Jazz Provider - Configure how your app connects to Jazz
  2. Add authentication (optional) - Enable users to access data across devices
  3. Define your schema - See the schema docs for more information
  4. Run your app:
npx expo run:ios
# or
npx expo run:android

Verification

Ready to see if everything's working? Let's fire up your app:

npx expo run:ios
# or
npx expo run:android

If all goes well, your app should start up without any angry red error screens. Take a quick look at the Metro console too - no Jazz-related errors there means you're all set! If you see your app's UI come up smoothly, you've nailed the installation.

If you run into any issues that aren't covered in the Common Issues section, drop by our Discord for help.

Common Issues

  • Metro bundler errors: If you see errors about missing polyfills, ensure all polyfills are properly imported.
  • iOS build failures: Make sure you've run pod install after adding the dependencies.
  • Android build failures: Ensure you've run npx expo prebuild to generate native code.
  • Expo Go incompatibility: Remember that Jazz requires a development build and won't work with Expo Go.

Install CocoaPods

If you're compiling for iOS, you'll need to install CocoaPods for your project. If you need to install it, we recommend using pod-install:

npx pod-install
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