How to use React Native Storybook Server with webpack 5

This is a quick guide for the prerelease version (6.5.0-rc.6) with a stable release coming out soon for React Native Storybook 6.5.

The React Native Storybook Server is an optional companion app for react native storybook that lets you control the storybook on your mobile device via a web interface.
Until recently webpack 5 was not supported in the react native storybook server. Recently that support was added by a contributor @leonardo-fc and is now available in the release candidate version of the server.

The Guide

First bootstrap an app with react native storybook

yarn create expo-app --template expo-template-storybook AwesomeStorybook

Go to the directory of the new app

cd AwesomeStorybook

Add the react native storybook server package and some webpack5 dependencies to your project

yarn add -D @storybook/react-native-server@next webpack @storybook/builder-webpack5 @storybook/manager-webpack5

Make sure you add all of these packages otherwise it won't work.

Add the following script to your package.json file

{
  "scripts": {
    "start-server": "react-native-storybook-server"
  }
}

Create a folder called .storybook_server and add a main.js file with the following content

module.exports = {
  stories: [
    "../components/**/*.stories.mdx",
    "../components/**/*.stories.@(js|jsx|ts|tsx)",
  ],
  env: () => ({}),
  core: {
    builder: "webpack5",
  },
  addons: ["@storybook/addon-essentials"],
};

By setting the builder to webpack5 we are telling the storybook server to use webpack 5 instead of the default webpack 4.

In this bootstrapped project the ondevice storybook is configured in the .ondevice folder.
In the index.tsx file we need to update some options so that websockets are enabled.

const StorybookUIRoot = getStorybookUI({
  enableWebsockets: true,
});

Now you can start the server with yarn start-server and open the storybook on your mobile device with yarn storybook.

Make sure you restart the app on your device so that the server can pick up the stories sent over the websockets (sent on app startup).

At this point you should be running the react native server with webpack 5.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or feedback please tweet or send me a message @Danny_H_W.