React Native (Expo)

Caide treats React Native as a first-class mobile development environment. When you select React Native during project creation, Caide scaffolds an Expo project configured with TypeScript, modern file-based routing (expo-router), and NativeWind / Tailwind CSS.

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Toolchain & Dev Server Management

When a React Native project boots:

1. Metro Bundler Supervision: Caide starts the Metro bundler on port 8081 (or next free port) in an isolated background process.
2. DeviceLab Integration: The Right Dock loads the web bundle inside an interactive iPhone 16 Pro simulator frame.
3. Hot Module Replacement (HMR): As the agent modifies screens and components, Metro immediately pushes updates to the preview stage with zero full-page reloads.
4. Console Log Interception: Metro’s standard error and log stream are piped directly into Caide's bottom console, allowing the agent to diagnose rendering exceptions in real time.

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Testing on Physical Devices with QR Codes

Testing touch gestures and native camera/sensor APIs requires physical hardware:

• Click the Mobile QR badge in the Right Dock.
• Scan the displayed QR code with the Expo Go app (iOS Camera or Android Expo Go).
• Your physical device connects to the running Metro dev server over your local WiFi network, mirroring changes instantly.

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Native Build & Export Pipelines

Caide supports multiple deployment paths:

• EAS Build: Run cloud builds with Expo Application Services (eas build -p ios / eas build -p android).
• Prebuild & Native Projects: Run npx expo prebuild to eject native ios/ and android/ folders for direct Xcode and Android Studio compilation.
• Export CAIDEPKG: Export a self-contained portable package with dependencies locked.