How to Test a Release Candidate

Pre-requisites

• Have a clone of react-native repo and be on the release candidate branch.

  # Checkout relevant branch
  git checkout 0.66-stable
  yarn install
  
  # I needed a .watchmanconfig because `npm start` would fail without it.
  echo '{}' > .watchmanconfig

• Have Android and iOS development environment set-up. Follow instructions for macOS/iOS and macOS/Android from the Environment Setup guide.

  Additional steps for Android

  • Gradle should now install the appropriate ndk. Verify that you have in your path the ANDROID_NDK variable, pointing to it.
  • In case you are on macOS Catalina (or higher), you might also need to run sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/ndk to avoid the e2e script to fail. That said, this should not happen anymore since from NDK 21 and higher the Android team started signing the NDK.*

Test Dimensions

Covered by running test-manual-e2e.sh, see issue about supporting those "manual" cases.

Variant	RNTester	Template App
Android - JSC	via test-manual-e2e.sh	via test-manual-e2e.sh
Android - Hermes	via test-manual-e2e.sh	manual
iOS - JSC	via test-manual-e2e.sh	via test-manual-e2e.sh
iOS - Hermes	via test-manual-e2e.sh	manual

Test Checklist

Link to branch:
Project info
Name
Starting RN version	<add me, ex. RN 0.65.1>
Hermes on iOS	yes/no
Hermes on Android	yes/no
Tested - iOS
Fast Refresh	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Debug/dev build on Simulator	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Debug/dev build on Device	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Production build	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Chrome remote debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Hermes debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Flipper debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Tested - Android
Fast Refresh	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Debug/dev build on Emulator	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Debug/dev build on Device	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Production build	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Chrome remote debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Hermes debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️
Flipper debugger	✅/🚨/🙅‍♂️

Steps

1. Delete RNTester and RNTestProject from your Android emulator and iOS simulator if leftover from previous test.

2. Remove any temporary files:

    git clean -fdx

3. Install dependencies:

    yarn install
    pushd packages/rn-tester
    pod install --repo-update
    popd

4. Go through Test Checklist for variants supported by test-manual-e2e script:

   # This will run you through the different variants in Test Dimensions table
   ./scripts/test-manual-e2e.sh

5. Go through Test Checklist for Hermes enabled template app.

   info

   Script will install template app at /tmp/RNTestProject.

• Enable Hermes for Android template app, clean, build and go through Test Checklist.

  # Update `/tmp/RNTestProject/android/app/build.gradle` to `enableHermes`
  project.ext.react = [
     enableHermes: true,  // clean and rebuild if changing
  ]
  
  # Clean and rebuild
  /tmp/RNTestProject/android$ ./gradlew clean
  /tmp/RNTestProject$ npx react-native run-android

• Enable Hermes for iOS template app, clean, build and go through Test Checklist.

  # Update `/tmp/RNTestProject/ios/Podfile` and then run `pod install`
  use_react_native!(
    :path => config[:reactNativePath],
    # to enable hermes on iOS, change `false` to `true` and then install pods
    :hermes_enabled => true
  )
  
  # Install pods and run
  /tmp/RNTestProject/ios$ pod install
  /tmp/RNTestProject$ npx react-native run-ios

Other dimensions to consider

• Running your iOS project with --release configuration.
• Attempting to upload your app to TestFlight.