Build a React Native library
When code is in non-standard syntaxes such as JSX, TypeScript etc, it needs to be compiled before it can run. Configuring this manually can be error-prone and annoying. react-native-builder-bob
aims to simplify this process by wrapping babel
and tsc
and taking care of the configuration. See this section for a longer explanation.
Supported targets are:
- ES modules (opens in a new tab) build for modern tools
- CommonJS (opens in a new tab) build for legacy tools
- TypeScript (opens in a new tab) definitions
- Flow (opens in a new tab) definitions (copies .js files to .flow files)
- Codegen (opens in a new tab) generated scaffold code
If you created a project with create-react-native-library
, react-native-builder-bob
is already pre-configured to build your project. You don't need to configure it again.
The following configuration steps are for projects not created with create-react-native-library
.
Automatic configuration
To automatically configure your project to use react-native-builder-bob
, open a Terminal and run:
npx react-native-builder-bob@latest init
This will ask you a few questions and add the required configuration and scripts for building the code. The code will be compiled automatically when the package is published.
Note: the
init
command doesn't add thecodegen
target yet. You can either add it manually or create a new library withcreate-react-native-library
.
You can find details on what exactly it adds in the Manual configuration section.
Manual configuration
To configure your project manually, follow these steps:
-
First, install
react-native-builder-bob
in your project. Open a Terminal in your project, and run:yarn add --dev react-native-builder-bob
-
In your
package.json
, specify the targets to build for:"react-native-builder-bob": { "source": "src", "output": "lib", "targets": [ ["module", { "esm": true }], ["commonjs", { "esm": true }], "typescript", "codegen" ] }
See the Options section for more details.
-
Add
bob
to yourprepare
orprepack
step:"scripts": { "prepare": "bob build" }
Note that there is a difference between
prepare
andprepack
scripts:prepare
is run when:- The package is published with Yarn 1 (
yarn publish
), npm (npm publish
) or pnpm (pnpm publish
) - The package is installed from a GIT URL with Yarn 1 (
yarn add <git-url>
), npm (npm install <git-url>
) or pnpm (pnpm add <git-url>
)
- The package is published with Yarn 1 (
prepack
is run when:- The package is published with any package manager (
yarn publish
,npm publish
,pnpm publish
) - The package is installed from a GIT URL with Yarn 4 (
yarn add package-name@<git-url>
)
- The package is published with any package manager (
If you are not sure which one to use, we recommend going with
prepare
as it works during both publishing and installing from GIT with more package managers. -
Configure the appropriate entry points:
"source": "./src/index.tsx", "main": "./lib/commonjs/index.js", "module": "./lib/module/index.js", "exports": { ".": { "import": { "types": "./lib/typescript/module/src/index.d.ts", "default": "./lib/module/index.js" }, "require": { "types": "./lib/typescript/commonjs/src/index.d.ts", "default": "./lib/commonjs/index.js" } }, "./package.json": "./package.json" }, "files": [ "lib", "src" ]
Here is what each of these fields mean:
source
: The path to the source code. It is used byreact-native-builder-bob
to detect the correct output files and provide better error messages.main
: The entry point for the CommonJS build. This is used by Node - such as tests, SSR etc.files
: The files to include in the package when publishing withnpm
.exports
: The entry points for tools that support theexports
field inpackage.json
- such as Node.js 12+, modern browsers and tools. See the ESM support guide for more details.
Make sure to change specify correct files according to the targets you have enabled.
-
Add the output directory to
.gitignore
and.eslintignore
# generated files by bob lib/
This makes sure that you don't accidentally commit the generated files to git or get lint errors for them.
-
Add the output directory to
jest.modulePathIgnorePatterns
if you use Jest (opens in a new tab)"modulePathIgnorePatterns": ["<rootDir>/lib/"]
This makes sure that Jest doesn't try to run the tests in the generated files.
-
Configure React Native Codegen (opens in a new tab)
If your library supports the New React Native Architecture (opens in a new tab), you should also configure Codegen. This is not required for libraries that only support the old architecture.
You can follow the Official Codegen Setup Guide (opens in a new tab) to enable Codegen.
It's also recommended to ship your Codegen generated scaffold code with your library since it has numerous benefits. To see the benefits and implement this behavior, you can see the Official Codegen Shipping Guide (opens in a new tab).
See How to opt-out of shipping the Codegen generated code if you don't want to ship the Codegen generated scaffold code.
Note: If you enable Codegen generated code shipping, React Native won't build the scaffold code automatically when you build your test app. You need to rebuild the codegen scaffold code manually each time you make changes to your spec. If you want to automate this process, you can create a new project with
create-react-native-library
and inspect the example app.
And we're done 🎉
Options
The options can be specified in the package.json
file under the react-native-builder-bob
property, or in a bob.config.js
file in your project directory.
source
The name of the folder with the source code which should be compiled. The folder should include an index
file.
output
The name of the folder where the compiled files should be output to. It will contain separate folder for each target.
exclude
Glob pattern to be used while filtering the unnecessary files. Defaults to '**/{__tests__,__fixtures__,__mocks__}/**'
if not specified.
Example:
{
"exclude": "ignore_me/**"
}
This option only works with
commonjs
andmodule
targets. To exclude files while buildingtypescript
, please see the tsconfig exclude field (opens in a new tab).
targets
Various targets to build for. The available targets are:
module
Enable compiling source files with Babel and use ES module system (import
/export
).
This is useful for modern bundlers that understand ES modules. Bundlers such as webpack (opens in a new tab) can also tree-shake code using ES modules.
The output file should be referenced in the module
field and exports['.'].import
(when esm: true
) field of package.json
.
By default, the code is compiled to support the last 2 versions of modern browsers. It also strips TypeScript and Flow annotations as well as compiles JSX code. You can customize the environments to compile for by using a browserslist config (opens in a new tab).
In addition, the following options are supported:
esm
Setting this option to true
will output ES modules compatible code for Node.js 12+, modern browsers and other tools that support package.json
's exports
field.
See the ESM support guide for more details.
configFile
To customize the babel config used, you can pass the configFile
(opens in a new tab) option as true
if you have a babel.config.js
or a path to a custom config file. This will override the default configuration.
It is recommended that you extend the default configuration by using the react-native-builder-bob/babel-preset
(opens in a new tab) preset in your custom config file:
module.exports = {
presets: ['react-native-builder-bob/babel-preset'],
};
This will make sure that the commonjs
target produces code using CommonJS and the module
target produces code using ES modules. It is also necessary for the esm
option to work correctly.
If you don't want to use the preset, then make sure to conditionally enable or disable the CommonJS transform with the following condition:
module.exports = (api) => {
const isCommonJSTransformDisabled = api.caller(
// If `supportsStaticESM` is `true`, output ES modules, otherwise output CommonJS
(caller) => caller && caller.supportsStaticESM
);
return {
// Your config here
};
};
If you're using @babel/preset-env
(opens in a new tab) with the modules
(opens in a new tab) option set to "auto"
(which is the default), it will be automatically configured to correctly enable the CommonJS transform when needed, so additional configuration is not necessary.
babelrc
You can set the babelrc
(opens in a new tab) option to true
to enable using .babelrc
files. Similar considerations apply as with the configFile
option.
jsxRuntime
By default, JSX is compiled to use the automatic
runtime (opens in a new tab) introduced in React 17 (opens in a new tab). This transform is also compatible with React 16.14.0, React 15.7.0, and React 0.14.10.
If you want to use the classic runtime for any other reason, you can set the jsxRuntime
option to classic
explicitly.
This option has no effect when overriding the default babel configuration without using react-native-builder-bob/babel-preset
.
copyFlow
If your source code is written in Flow (opens in a new tab), You can specify the copyFlow
option to true
to copy the source files as .js.flow
to the output folder. If the main
entry in package.json
points to the index
file in the output folder, the flow type checker will pick these files up to use for type definitions.
sourceMaps
Sourcemaps are generated by default alongside the compiled files. You can disable them by setting the sourceMaps
option to false
.
Example:
["module", { "esm": true }]
commonjs
Enable compiling source files with Babel and use CommonJS module system. This is essentially the same as the module
target and accepts the same options, but transforms the import
/export
statements in your code to require
/module.exports
.
This is useful for supporting usage of this module with require
in Node versions older than 20 (it can still be used with import
for Node.js 12+ if module
target with esm
is enabled), and some tools such a Jest (opens in a new tab). The output file should be referenced in the main
field. If you have a dual module setup with both ESM and CommonJS builds, it needs to be specified in exports['.'].require
field of package.json
.
Example:
["commonjs", { "sourceMaps": false, "copyFlow": true }]
typescript
Enable generating type definitions with tsc
if your source code is written in TypeScript (opens in a new tab).
When both module
and commonjs
targets are enabled, and esm
is set to true
for the module
target, this will output 2 sets of type definitions: one for the CommonJS build and one for the ES module build.
The following options are supported:
project
By default, the tsconfig.json
file in the root of your project is used to generate the type definitions. You can specify a path to a different config by using the project
option. This can be useful if you need to use different configs for development and production.
tsc
The path to the tsc
binary is automatically detected and defaults to the one installed in your project. You can use the tsc
option to specify a different path.
Example:
["typescript", { "project": "tsconfig.build.json" }]
The output file should be referenced in the types
field or exports['.'].types
field of package.json
.
codegen
Enable generating the React Native Codegen (opens in a new tab) scaffold code, which is used with the New React Native Architecture.
You can ensure your Codegen generated scaffold code is stable through different React Native versions by shipping it with your library. You can find more in the React Native Official Docs (opens in a new tab).
custom
Define a custom build target. This is useful to call custom scripts during when running bob build
.
script
Name of the script to run. The script must be defined in the package.json
file under the scripts
property. This property is required.
This script is run asynchronously alongside the other build targets.
clean
Optionally, you can specify a path to cleanup before running the build script. The path is resolved relatively to where build
was called from.
This is useful if your script generates output files. Cleaning the output folder before running the script ensures that the output doesn't contain stale files.
Example:
["custom", { "script": "my-custom-build", "clean": "my-output-folder/" }]
Commands
The bob
CLI exposes the following commands:
init
This configures an existing project to use bob
by adding the required configuration and dependencies. This is usually run with npx
:
npx react-native-builder-bob@latest init
build
This builds the project according to the configuration. This is usually run as part of the package's publishing flow, i.e. in the prepare
or prepack
scripts.
"scripts": {
"prepare": "bob build"
}