@kingstinct/expo-apple-targets

Apple Targets plugin

An experimental Expo Config Plugin which generates native Apple Targets like Widgets or App Clips, and links them outside the ios directory. You can open Xcode and develop the targets inside the virtual expo:targets folder, and the changes will be saved outside of the ios directory. This pattern enables building things that fall outside of the scope of React Native while still obtaining all the benefits of Continuous Native Generation.

This is highly experimental and not part of any official Expo workflow.

🚀 How to use

• Add targets to targets/ directory with an expo-target.config.json file.
• Currently, if you don't have an Info.plist, it'll be generated on npx expo prebuild. This may be changed in the future so if you have an Info.plist it'll be used, otherwise it'll be generated.
• Any files in a top-level target/*/assets directory will be linked as resources of the target. This was added to support Safari Extensions.
• A single top-level *.entitlements file will be linked as the entitlements of the target. This is not currently used in EAS Capability signing, but may be in the future.
• All top-level swift files will be linked as build sources of the target. There is currently no support for storyboard or xib files because I can't be bothered.
• All top-level *.xcassets will be linked as resources, and accessible in the targets. If you add files outside of Xcode, you'll need to re-run npx expo prebuild to link them.
• Code-signing requires the teamId be provided to the plugin in app.config.js.

Using React Native in Targets

I'm not sure, that's not the purpose of this plugin. I built this so I could easily build iOS widgets and other minor targets with SwiftUI. I imagine it would be straightforward to use React Native in share, notification, iMessage, Safari, and photo editing extensions, you can build that on top of this plugin if you want.

expo-target.config.json

This file can have the following properties:

{
  "type": "widget",
  "accentColor": { "color": "red", "darkColor": "blue" },
  // or "accentColor": "red",
  "icon": "../assets/icon.png",
  // Can also be a URL
  "frameworks": [
    // Frameworks without the extension, these will be added to the target.
    "SwiftUI"
  ]
}

You can also use .js with the typedoc for autocomplete:

/** @type {import('../../target-plugin/config').Config} */
module.exports = {
  type: "watch",
  accentColor: "steelblue",
  deploymentTarget: "9.4",
};

Supported types

Ideally, this would be generated automatically based on a fully qualified Xcode project, but for now it's a manual process. The currently supported types are based on static analysis of the most commonly used targets in the iOS App Store.

Type	Description
widget	Widget / Live Activity
watch	Watch App (with companion iOS App)
clip	App Clip
safari	Safari Extension
share	Share Extension
notification-content	Notification Content Extension
notification-service	Notification Service Extension
intent	Siri Intent Extension
intent-ui	Siri Intent UI Extension
spotlight	Spotlight Index Extension
matter	Matter Intent Extension
bg-download	Background Download Extension
quicklook-thumbnail	Quick Look Thumbnail Extension
location-push	Location Push Service Extension
credentials-provider	Credentials Provider Extension
account-auth	Account Authentication Extension

Xcode parsing

This plugin makes use of my proprietary Xcode parsing library, @bacons/xcode. It's mostly typed, very untested, and possibly full of bugs––however, it's still 10x nicer than the alternative.