Ignite - the battle-tested React Native boilerplate

Battle-tested React Native boilerplate

The culmination of over six years of constant React Native development, Ignite is the most popular React Native app boilerplate for both Expo and bare React Native.

This is the React Native boilerplate that the Infinite Red team uses on a day-to-day basis to build client apps. Developers who use Ignite report that it saves them two to four weeks of time on average off the beginning of their React Native project!

Intro Video

Check out the Getting Started with Ignite video for a 13 minute overview!

Tech Stack

Nothing makes it into Ignite unless it's been proven on projects that Infinite Red works on. Ignite apps include the following rock-solid technical decisions out of the box:

Library	Category	Version	Description
React Native	Mobile Framework	v0.71	The best cross-platform mobile framework
React	UI Framework	v18	The most popular UI framework in the world
TypeScript	Language	v4	Static typechecking
React Navigation	Navigation	v6	Performant and consistent navigation framework
MobX-State-Tree	State Management	v5	Observable state tree
MobX-React-Lite	React Integration	v3	Re-render React performantly
Expo	SDK	v48	Allows (optional) Expo modules
Expo Font	Custom Fonts	v10	Import custom fonts
Expo Localization	Internationalization	v13	i18n support (including RTL!)
Expo Status Bar	Status Bar Library	v1	Status bar support
RN Reanimated	Animations	v2	Beautiful and performant animations
AsyncStorage	Persistence	v1	State persistence
apisauce	REST client	v2	Communicate with back-end
Flipper	Debugger		Native debugging
Reactotron RN	Inspector/Debugger	v2	JS debugging
Hermes	JS engine		Fine-tuned JS engine for RN
Jest	Test Runner	v26	Standard test runner for JS apps
Maestro	Testing Framework		Automate end-to-end UI testing
date-fns	Date library	v2	Excellent date library

Ignite also comes with a component library that is tuned for custom designs, theming support, testing, custom fonts, generators, and much, much more.

Check out the documentation!

Quick Start

Prerequisites:

For Expo-powered React Native apps, no prerequisites are necessary (why choose Expo?)
For vanilla React Native, make sure you're set up for React Native by following the official documentation.

Run the CLI:

# Get walked through the prompts for the different options to start your new app
npx ignite-cli@latest new PizzaApp

# Accept all the recommended defaults and get straight to coding!
npx ignite-cli@latest new PizzaApp --yes

Once you're up and running, check out our new Getting Started Guide guide or the rest of our docs.

If you'd like to follow a tutorial, check out this one from Robin Heinze. Note that this was created for a previous version of Ignite -- we are working on updating it!

Generators

The hidden gem of Ignite. Generators help you scaffold your app very quickly, be it for a proof-of-concept, a demo, or a production app. Generators are there to save you time, keep your code consistent, and help you with the basic structure of your app.

npx ignite-cli generate --help

...will give you information on what generators are present. To learn more, check out our Generators documentation.

Troubleshooting

The above commands may fail with various errors, depending on your operating system and dependency versions. Some troubleshooting steps to follow:

Uninstall global versions of the Ignite CLI via npm uninstall -g ignite-cli and use the CLI via npx ignite-cli
Make sure you are using a reasonably recent version of Node. This can be checked via the node --version command. If you require multiple Node versions on your system, install nvm, and then run nvm install --lts. At the time of writing, Node LTS is v16.x.x.
If the installation fails because of an Xcode error (missing Xcode command line tools), the easiest way to install them is to run sudo xcode-select --install in your terminal.
If Xcode and command line tools are already installed, but the installation complains about missing patch dependencies, you may need to switch the Xcode location to something else: sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
Opening the project in Xcode can give you other insights into what's happening: open ./ios/<yourapp>.xcworkspace
Add the --debug switch to the Ignite CLI new command to provide additional output during project initialization

Note:

Navigation persistence is OFF by default in production.
Error boundary is set to 'always' display by default.

Reporting Bugs / Getting Help

If you run into problems, first search the issues and discussions in this repository. If you don't find anything, you can come talk to our friendly and active developers in the Infinite Red Community Slack (community.infinite.red).

If you still need help after reaching out to the proper channels, feel free to open a new GitHub issue via npx ignite-cli issue "Unable to Ignite new app" (as an example). This will help start writing your issue with the correct diagnostic information included.

Need Inspiration?

If you need battle-tested solutions from Infinite Red experts on everything from Accessibility, to CI/CD configuration, head to Ignite Cookbook for code snippets from our team and the community!

No time to learn React Native? Hire Infinite Red for your next project

We get it – sometimes there just isn’t enough time on a project to learn the ins and outs of a new framework. Infinite Red’s here to help! Our experienced team of React Native engineers have worked with companies like Microsoft, GasBuddy, Zoom, and Mercari to bring some of the most complex React Native projects to life.

Whether it’s running a full project or training a team on React Native, we can help you solve your company’s toughest engineering challenges – and make it a great experience at the same time.

Ready to see how we can work together? Send us a message

Enalmada/ignite