React Native Continuous Integration Using EAS (Expo Application Services)

This project is configured to run EAS custom builds for continuous integration of React Native, and is currently configured to do this successfully for the RNTV (React Native for TV) fork of the core repo.

Some work has also been done to generalize this project to work on the RN core repo, and also work on repos that support other out-of-tree platforms.

Other project goals:

• Reduce the number of changes from core that have to be maintained in RNTV
• Make it possible for developers using RN to create their own Maven artifacts with their own customizations

To make this possible, the existing CI code from both the core repo and the TV repo have been rewritten here in Typescript to run in Node. This makes the CI code independent of any particular repo.

Already working:

• Create release artifacts for RNTV
• Create release artifacts for RN core
• Run JS unit tests for RNTV
• Run JS unit tests on RN core repo
• Publish RNTV artifacts to Sonatype
• Generate RNTV NPM packages for manual publication to NPM
• Add unit tests for the CI code

Future work:

• Run E2E tests for RNTV
• Publish an RNTV release to NPM

Prerequisites

• If you are not already using EAS, you will need to sign up for a free or paid EAS account.
• You will also need to install the EAS CLI (npm i -g eas-cli).

Quick start

Clone this repo, then

cd react-native-eas-ci
yarn
# Initialize EAS project settings (add EAS project ID and owner to app.json)
eas init
#
# Try building some profiles that already are known to work
#
# Build iOS Hermes artifact for RNTV (requires Mac M1/M2 runner)
eas build -e "Build iOS artifacts for RNTV 0.76.0-0rc2 (no VisionOS)" -p ios
# Build Android artifacts (react-android, hermes-android) for RNTV
eas build -e "Build Android artifacts for RNTV 0.76.0-0rc2" -p <ios|android>
# Run JS unit tests (can be run on ios or android runner)
eas build -e "RNTV tvos-0.76.0 unit tests" -p <ios|android>

Project design and structure

• ./.eas/build: All EAS custom build configurations are defined as YAML files in this directory. This directory also includes several EAS build custom functions to install Cmake, Java, and Android SDK tools required by React Native CI.
• ./src: All build scripts are Typescript sources in this directory, and run with the command /usr/bin/env -S yarn --silent ts-node --transpile-only.
• ./src/common: Contains constants, types, and utilities used by all the build scripts.

Build profiles in this repo

Every build profile should extend one of the profiles below, adding the right values for the required and optional environment variables.

maven_ios_artifacts:

Builds the react-native-artifacts artifact for a React Native repo. The repo defined by REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL is cloned from branch REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_BRANCH, and the artifacts are then built using that clone.

Building the iOS artifacts requires an iOS (M1 or M2 Mac) build runner with Java, cmake, and the Android SDK and build tools installed. These installations are done by the installCmake, installJava and installAndroidSDK custom functions.

Android SDK installation requires that licenses be accepted by the installer. This repo follows Android's recommendations for doing this in a CI environment, by making a gzipped tar archive of the licenses folder from your Android SDK location (this has all the licenses that have been accepted already). The archive should be uploaded to the ANDROID_SDK_LICENSES secret file in EAS.

maven_android_artifacts:

Builds the react-android and hermes-android artifacts for a React Native repo. The repo defined by REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL is cloned from branch REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_BRANCH, and the artifacts are then built using that clone.

Building the Android artifacts can be done on either an Android (Linux) build runner or an iOS (M1 or M2 Mac) runner. For M1/M2 runners, the same custom functions listed above are required. Linux runners already have Java installed, so the installJava custom function is not needed (and is a noop on these runners). The installCmake and installAndroidSDK functions are still required, as Cmake and Ninja are not installed by default on Linux runners.

run_unit_tests:

This profile clones and installs the React Native repo at REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL from branch REACT_NATIVE_REPO_BRANCH, and then simply follows the same flow as the top level script in the React Native repo (scripts/run-ci-javascript-tests.js) to run eslint, flow, codegen, Jest, and tslint tests. The text output of all the tests is uploaded as the build artifact for this profile. This profile can be run on either iOS or Android build runners. No custom functions are required for this profile.

cut_release_branch:

This profile clones REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL from branch REACT_NATIVE_REPO_BRANCH, creates a new branch REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_BRANCH, then bumps the React Native version to REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_VERSION and commits the changes. If PUSH_RELEASE_TO_REPO is true, changes will be pushed to the repo.

update_podfile_lock:

This profile should only be run after Maven artifacts for REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_VERSION have been published. It clones REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL from branch REACT_NATIVE_REPO_BRANCH, executes pod install in the rn-tester project of the monorepo, and then commits the Podfile.lock changes. If PUSH_RELEASE_TO_REPO is true, changes will be pushed to the repo.

Building React Native artifacts

eas.json contains predefined build profiles that will successfully build Maven release artifacts.

A release of the core or TV repo requires building three Maven artifacts:

• react-android: the AARs for the React Native Android native code
• hermes-android: the AARs for the Hermes Android native code
• react-native-artifacts: the iOS and tvOS Hermes frameworks

Artifacts are compressed into gzipped tar archives, and exported as the EAS build products.

Artifacts are created in the Maven namespace specified in the React Native repo itself, in the react.internal.publishingGroup property found in packages/react-native/ReactAndroid/gradle.properties in the monorepo.

GPG signing of Maven artifacts

In order to be published to Sonatype Maven, artifact builds must be signed with a valid GPG key. To fulfill this requirement, a key pair must be created, then the private key exported per the instructions in the gradle-maven-publish-plugin documentation. The exported private key string and the password for the key must then be uploaded to EAS as secret strings ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SIGNING_KEY and ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SIGNING_PWD, respectively. The public key must be uploaded to a public key server.

Useful document on securely creating and signing a "project key" for use cases like this

Publishing Maven artifacts to Sonatype

See Sonatype documentation for how to generate the Sonatype API username and password. Once generated, these must then be uploaded to EAS as secret strings ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SONATYPE_USERNAME and ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SONATYPE_PASSWORD.

Environment variable requirements

• Required for all profiles:

  • String REACT_NATIVE_REPO_URL (e.g. https://github.com/react-native-tvos/react-native-tvos or https://github.com/facebook/react-native)
  • String REACT_NATIVE_REPO_BRANCH (e.g. main, 0.74-stable, doug/ci)
  • String REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_BRANCH (e.g. release-0.75.2-0, release-0.76.0-0rc0)
  • String REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_VERSION (e.g. 0.75.2, 0.75.2-0, 0.76.0-0rc0)

• Required for maven_android_artifacts, maven_ios_artifacts:

  • Core version:
    • String REACT_NATIVE_CORE_VERSION (the core version on which TV releases are based -- for builds on RN core, it should just be equal to REACT_NATIVE_RELEASE_VERSION)
  • GPG signing:
    • String ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SIGNING_KEY
    • String ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SIGNING_PWD
  • Android licenses (if installing Android SDK on an iOS M1/M2 runner):
    • Secret file ANDROID_SDK_LICENSES
  • Sonatype API username/password (if publishing to Sonatype):
    • String ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SONATYPE_USERNAME
    • String ORG_GRADLE_PROJECT_SONATYPE_PASSWORD

• Optional for maven_android_artifacts, maven_ios_artifacts:

  • String IS_SNAPSHOT (if "true", Maven artifacts are created as snapshots instead of release artifacts)
  • String PUBLISH_TO_SONATYPE (if "true", Maven artifacts are published to the snapshot or staging repository in Sonatype)
  • String INCLUDE_VISION_OS (if "false", Vision OS frameworks are omitted from the Apple Hermes artifacts. This option should only be used in RNTV builds, not in RN core builds)
  • String INCLUDE_TV_OS (if "false", Apple TV frameworks are omitted from the Apple Hermes artifacts. This option must be used in RN core builds)

• Required for cut_release_branch, update-podfile-lock:

  • String GITHUB_USER
  • Secret string GITHUB_TOKEN (should be a secret environment variable)
  • String GIT_AUTHOR_NAME
  • String GIT_AUTHOR_EMAIL
  • String GIT_COMMITTER_NAME
  • String GIT_COMMITTER_EMAIL

• Optional for cut_release_branch, update_podfile_lock:

  • String PUSH_RELEASE_TO_REPO (If "true", repo changes will actually be pushed)