Testing React Native Changes in the Sample App

When making changes to the React Native integration, it can be helpful to test them directly in the ReactNativeFlipperExample we provide in the repository. However, the app builds against a production release of Flipper and not the version checked in in the repository.

In order to test against the changes you have made, you need to publish a Flipper release locally.

Publishing a Local Release

First, create a unique version number. This step is optional but is helpful to prevent accidentally testing against the wrong version.

In the top-level gradle.properties, change the version:

...
# POM publishing constants
VERSION_NAME=0.44.99-SNAPSHOT # Change this one.
GROUP=com.facebook.flipper
...

Now, run ./gradlew installArchives -PRELEASE_SIGNING_ENABLED=false in the root of the repository. This will place the artifact files in your local ~/.m2/repository folder.

Using the new Release

Usually, you need to change your project to also pick up files in mavenLocal(). As this is already done, you can directly change the FLIPPER_VERSION to the previously used identifier in react-native/ReactNativeFlipperExample/android/gradle.properties:

# Version of flipper SDK to use with React Native
FLIPPER_VERSION=0.30.2
FLIPPER_VERSION=0.44.99-SNAPSHOT

Now run yarn android to rebuild, install and launch the RN sample app.

To test further changes, rerun the ./gradlew installArchives -PRELEASE_SIGNING_ENABLED=false and yarn android steps.

Full Diff

For a quick overview, here are the two changes you need to make:

diff --git a/gradle.properties b/gradle.properties
index 1ccd002a..100a7169 100644
--- a/gradle.properties
+++ b/gradle.properties
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 # LICENSE file in the root directory of this source tree.

 # POM publishing constants
-VERSION_NAME=0.44.1-SNAPSHOT
+VERSION_NAME=0.44.99-SNAPSHOT
 GROUP=com.facebook.flipper
 POM_URL=https://github.com/facebook/flipper
 POM_SCM_URL=https://github.com/facebook/flipper.git
diff --git a/react-native/ReactNativeFlipperExample/android/gradle.properties b/react-native/ReactNativeFlipperExample/android/gradle.properties
index 495c12e8..bc815d0e 100644
--- a/react-native/ReactNativeFlipperExample/android/gradle.properties
+++ b/react-native/ReactNativeFlipperExample/android/gradle.properties
@@ -30,4 +30,4 @@ android.useAndroidX=true
 android.enableJetifier=true

 # Version of flipper SDK to use with React Native
-FLIPPER_VERSION=0.30.2
+FLIPPER_VERSION=0.44.99-SNAPSHOT