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Cover image for Speed up iOS builds by turning off Flipper on CI (complete React Native guide)
Davyd NRB
Davyd NRB

Posted on • Edited on

Speed up iOS builds by turning off Flipper on CI (complete React Native guide)

#reactnative #ios #ci #flipper

The simple way to speed up pod install it's turn off Flipper for CI builds.

1) For old React Native versions 0.68.x and lower edit your ios/Podfile:

# ./ios/Podfile
if !ENV['CI']
  use_flipper!()
end
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2) For React Native 0.69.x...0.70.x:

# ./ios/Podfile
use_react_native!(
  :flipper_configuration => ENV['CI'] ?
    FlipperConfiguration.disabled : 
    FlipperConfiguration.enabled,
  # ...
  # Note: you also can pass extra params
  # FlipperConfiguration.enabled(['Debug', 'Staging.Debug'], { 'Flipper': '0.174.0' })
)
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3) If you are using modern React Native 0.71.x and higher you can just add one env variable NO_FLIPPER=1 that prevent installing

NO_FLIPPER=1 npx pod-install
# or 
export NO_FLIPPER=1 # you can define globally 
pod install --project-directory=ios
# or short
NO_FLIPPER=1 pod install --project-directory=ios
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Troubleshooting

If your iOS build will fail with next error

node_modules/react-native-flipper/ios/FlipperReactNativeJavaScriptPlugin.h:9:9: 'FlipperKit/FlipperConnection.h' file not found

#import <FlipperKit/FlipperConnection.h>
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It happens because react-native-flipper package require installed FlipperKit pod but we turn off it on CI.

Solution will be easy, just exclude that module on CI too, you need to edit/add react-native.config.js in the root folder of your project:

// react-native.config.js
module.exports = {
  dependencies: {
    ...(process.env.CI // or `process.env.NO_FLIPPER` for RN@0.71.x and above
      ? { 'react-native-flipper': { platforms: { ios: null } } }
      : {}),
  },
  // ...
};
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Top comments (11)

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swrobel profile image
Stefan Wrobel •

Any ideas about Android?

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retyui profile image
Davyd NRB •

flipper is disabled by default on Android

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mavericx profile image
Mavericx •

nope this is not correct.

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retyui profile image
Davyd NRB • • Edited
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mavericx profile image
Mavericx • • Edited

the reference you gave is of v0.72.

v0.73 check
https://react-native-community.github.io/upgrade-helper/?from=0.72.10&to=0.73.2#:~:text=facebook.react%3Aflipper%2D-,integration,-%22)

v0.74 not released yet but agree without it's going to be removed.

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cglacet profile image
Christian glacet •

How do you pass the NO_FLIPPER to xcode? And will it be propagated correctly (how)? I'm asking because I still get the FlipperKit/FlipperClient.h not found error after adding these lines in react-native.config.js.

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retyui profile image
Davyd NRB •

NO_FLIPPER=1 usually used on CI, locally it's ok to have installed Flipper

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cglacet profile image
Christian glacet • • Edited

It really depends, for example we use react native Firebase which prevents using flipper, even locally. I think its worth describing how to edit .xscheme files to set (or not) the env variable to 1.

In our case we simply disabled flipper without using any configuration because we have no solution yet to make it work in any case. So we simply have:

// react-native.config.js
module.exports = {
    dependencies: {
        { 'react-native-flipper': { platforms: { ios: null } } }
    },
};
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And

# ios/Podfile
target 'AppName' do
  use_react_native!(
    :flipper_configuration => flipper_config,
  )
end
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Also I think many people don't use CI to build iOS apps because its hard (expensive) to get hands on a machine that can run xcodebuild.

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retyui profile image
Davyd NRB •

got it, maybe it will help stackoverflow.com/a/74254208/7456314?

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cglacet profile image
Christian glacet •

Maybe, I never tried myself because I ended up removing the option to enable flipper, but I guess it should work.

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raguram90 profile image
RamR •

this post helped me. thanks

View full discussion (11 comments)

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