react-native-test-app/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

This project welcomes contributions and suggestions. Most contributions require you to agree to a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) declaring that you have the right to, and actually do, grant us the rights to use your contribution. For details, visit https://cla.opensource.microsoft.com.

When you submit a pull request, a CLA bot will automatically determine whether you need to provide a CLA and decorate the PR appropriately (e.g., status check, comment). Simply follow the instructions provided by the bot. You will only need to do this once across all repositories using our CLA.

This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct FAQ or contact opencode@microsoft.com with any additional questions or comments.

Commit Messages

This repository adheres to the conventional commit format via commitlint-lite. Commit messages must match the pattern:

type(scope?): subject

Scope is optional. You can also specify multiple scopes using / or , as delimiters.

Following this is necessary to pass CI.

[!NOTE]

If you're pushing additional changes to an existing PR, you don't need to follow this convention. We squash all commits before merging. Only the first commit needs to adhere.

Additional Dependencies

• Node LTS (see releases for specific versions)
• Yarn Classic
• macOS: Homebrew

Building the Example App

We use the Example app for most (if not all) development of react-native-test-app. Some platforms may require extra steps for the initial set up. Please follow the steps below, then jump to the appropriate section(s) for the final steps.

Open a terminal and navigate to your clone of this repository:

cd react-native-test-app

The first thing we have to do is to install the npm dependencies:

yarn

Once Yarn is done installing dependencies, we need to navigate to the example folder:

cd example

Now we should be ready to start the app. Jump to the appropriate section below for further instructions.

Android

To start the Android app, run:

yarn android

Alternatively, you can also run the app within Android Studio by pointing it to the android folder.

iOS

Before you can run the iOS app, you must first install its native dependencies:

pod install --project-directory=ios

This command is also responsible for generating the Xcode project. To start the iOS app, run:

yarn ios

Alternatively, you can also run the app within Xcode by opening the Xcode workspace:

open ios/Example.xcworkspace

[!NOTE]

If you made changes to app.json or any other assets, you should re-run pod install to make sure that the changes are included in the Xcode project.

macOS

Before you can run the macOS app, you must first install its native dependencies:

pod install --project-directory=macos

This command is also responsible for generating the Xcode project. To start the macOS app, run:

yarn macos

Alternatively, you can also run the app within Xcode by opening the Xcode workspace:

open macos/Example.xcworkspace

[!NOTE]

If you made changes to app.json or any other assets, you should re-run pod install to make sure that the changes are included in the Xcode project.

Windows

Before you can run the Windows app, you must first generate it:

npx install-windows-test-app --use-nuget

To start the Windows app, run:

yarn windows

Alternatively, you can also run the app within Visual Studio by opening the solution file:

start windows/Example.sln

If you choose to use Visual Studio, remember to first set the target platform to x64. It may be set to ARM64 by default.

[!NOTE]

If you made changes to app.json or any other assets, you should re-run install-windows-test-app to make sure that the changes are included in the Visual Studio project.

Adding New Files

When adding new files, please make sure they are published (or not if it's for internal use only). To get a list of files that get published, you can run:

npm pack --dry-run --verbose

If your files are missing, you can modify the files section in package.json.

Also make sure that you update the test to include the new files:

node --test test/pack.test.mjs

Testing Specific React Native Versions

react-native-test-app supports multiple versions of React Native. Use set-react-version to set the version, e.g. to use 0.73:

npm run set-react-version 0.73

This will modify both package.json and example/package.json to use packages that are compatible with specified React Native version.

To avoid issues, remember to clear out node_modules folders before you run yarn:

yarn clean

And remove Podfile.lock:

rm example/ios/Podfile.lock example/macos/Podfile.lock

Adding Support For New React Native Versions

First, create a new issue using the "New react-native version" template, update the title and fill out all the required fields. You can find the relevant discussion link at react-native-releases.

Use the test:matrix script to both test and capture screenshots. We'll need the screenshots for the PR we'll create later. For instance, to test 0.73, run:

npm run test:matrix 0.73

At the minimum, we should be testing the lowest supported version (0.66 at the time of writing) in addition to the new version.

As you run the script, you will hit issues. Depending on the root cause, these are the things that you'll need to do:

• If the issue is in RNTA or @rnx-kit/react-native-host:
  • We own these pieces and should fix them ourselves.
  • Fixes should go directly to trunk if possible.
  • If we're adding version specific patches, make sure to add a TODO in the code as well as updating the Patches page in the wiki. This is to make it easier to identify and remove unused code as we drop support for older React Native versions.
• Check if others are reporting the same issue in the releases discussion:
  • If this is the case, see if they need a minimal repro. This is something we can easily provide using our example app.
  • Otherwise, identify the root cause and file an issue in the relevant repository, then link to it in the discussion.
    • If it's a simple fix, consider fixing it as you already have the context and it will save time for everyone.
• In any case, always put a link to the relevant comment/issue/PR in the description of the issue we created at the start of this process.

If the test script succeeds, we are ready to open a PR:

• Update package.json to include this new version
• When opening the PR, make sure to link to the issue we created earlier
• Copy and paste the table below into the description, modify it to fit the scope of the current PR
  • The test script we ran should have generated screenshots for the table

| Configuration | JSC  | Hermes | Fabric | Fabric + Hermes |
| :------------ | :--: | :----: | :----: | :-------------: |
| Android       | n/a  |  TODO  |  n/a   |      TODO       |
| iOS           | TODO |  TODO  |  TODO  |      TODO       |
| macOS         | TODO |  TODO  |  TODO  |      TODO       |
| visionOS      | TODO |  TODO  |  TODO  |      TODO       |
| Windows       | n/a  |  TODO  |  n/a   |      TODO       |

While the PR is open:

• Hold off on merging until the release crew has agreed to promote a release candidate to stable
• Keep an eye on the release discussion for new issues
• Re-run the test script as new release candidates are published and keep the screenshots up to date

Once the PR is ready to merge:

• Update the supported versions table in the wiki
• Update the appropriate @rnx-kit/align-deps profile

For reference, here's the issue (and PR) for 0.73: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-test-app/issues/1637 (and PR)

General Maintenance

We use Renovate to keep dependencies up to date. They are currently scheduled to run every Monday morning. You can also manually trigger updates via the Dependency Dashboard.

Direct Dependencies

• Patch bumps: As long as the CI is green, these should be good to merge without having to touch package.json. The only thing to watch out for is whether duplicates are introduced in yarn.lock:
  • Sometimes, running yarn dedupe is enough to get rid of duplicates.
  • Other times, we have to look at the dependency chain and dedupe by bumping one of the dependees.
  • As a last resort, and only if one of the dependees are using an unnecessarily strict version range, we can add a resolutions entry in package.json.
  • Finally, make sure the commit message is prefixed with chore and not fix to avoid publishing a new version with zero changes.
• Minor bumps: Semantically, minor bumps should only include additions and not break anything. Check the change log to be sure. Otherwise, see the notes on patch bumps.
• Major bumps: In general, we only do major bumps manually. This is to ensure that we aren't unnecessarily adding more dependencies on the consumer side or make things more complicated to maintain. An example of us holding back is the uuid package; as of writing, the latest version is 9.x but we're on 8.x still because that's the version being used by most of our dependencies.

Development Dependencies

Consumers never see these so we can be less conservative, especially when it comes to major bumps. Otherwise, everything mentioned above still applies.

Android Dependencies

Always check the change log for potentially breaking changes as they typically do not follow semantic versioning. In particular, be on the lookout for changes to:

• Minimum target version
• Android SDK version
• Kotlin version

If the bump contains potentially breaking changes, consider whether we need to gate them behind a version check. For example, we only use androidx.core:core-ktx:1.10.1 when on Kotlin 1.8 or higher. See dependencies.gradle for other examples.

Documentation

The schema for app.json is documented here: https://github.com/microsoft/react-native-test-app/wiki/Manifest-(app.json)

This page is wholly generated with the command, npm run generate:docs. You can copy the output and replace the page content in its entirety.

Documentation is generated by generate-schema.mjs and sources Markdown files under scripts/docs/.

When making changes to docs, also ensure that schema.json gets updated by running npm run generate:schema.

Release Announcements

We tend to announce minor releases, and releases that add support for new React Native versions, on Discord and on whatever social media of the day is. This is the template we currently use:

📣 react-native-test-app x.y.z

The announcement, any information about what users might have to do (or undo), and where they can learn more about them.

Other fixes since a.b.c:

• Fix #1
• Fix #2

Make sure you're on latest trunk, then run node scripts/release-notes.mjs <last version> <this version> to get a list of user-facing changes. You will likely need to prune and rewrite some of these entries.