React Native supports a few keyboard shortcuts in the iOS Simulator. They are described below. To enable them, open the Hardware menu, select Keyboard, and make sure that "Connect Hardware Keyboard" is checked.
You can access the developer menu by shaking your device or by selecting "Shake Gesture" inside the Hardware menu in the iOS Simulator. You can also use the `⌘D` keyboard shortcut when your app is running in the iOS Simulator, or `⌘M` when running in an Android emulator.
Instead of recompiling your app every time you make a change, you can reload your app's JavaScript code instantly. To do so, select "Reload" from the Developer Menu. You can also press `⌘R` in the iOS Simulator, or tap `R` twice on Android emulators.
You can speed up your development times by having your app reload automatically any time your code changes. Automatic reloading can be enabled by selecting "Enable Live Reload" from the Developer Menu.
You may even go a step further and keep your app running as new versions of your files are injected into the JavaScript bundle automatically by enabling [Hot Reloading](https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/2016/03/24/introducing-hot-reloading.html) from the Developer Menu. This will allow you to persist the app's state through reloads.
Errors and warnings are displayed inside your app in development builds.
### Errors
In-app errors are displayed in a full screen alert with a red background inside your app. This screen is known as a RedBox. You can use `console.error()` to manually trigger one.
### Warnings
Warnings will be displayed on screen with a yellow background. These alerts are known as YellowBoxes. Click on the alerts to show more information or to dismiss them.
As with a RedBox, you can use `console.warn()` to trigger a YellowBox.
YellowBoxes can be disabled during development by using `console.disableYellowBox = true;`. Specific warnings can be ignored programmatically by setting an array of prefixes that should be ignored: `console.ignoredYellowBox = ['Warning: ...'];`.
To debug the JavaScript code in Chrome, select "Debug JS Remotely" from the Developer Menu. This will open a new tab at [http://localhost:8081/debugger-ui](http://localhost:8081/debugger-ui).
Select `Tools → Developer Tools` from the Chrome Menu to open the [Developer Tools](https://developer.chrome.com/devtools). You may also access the DevTools using keyboard shortcuts (`⌘⌥I` on macOS, `Ctrl``Shift``I` on Windows). You may also want to enable [Pause On Caught Exceptions](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2233339/javascript-is-there-a-way-to-get-chrome-to-break-on-all-errors/17324511#17324511) for a better debugging experience.
> Note: the React Developer Tools Chrome extension does not work with React Native, but you can use its standalone version instead. Read [this section](docs/debugging.html#react-developer-tools) to learn how.
To use a custom JavaScript debugger in place of Chrome Developer Tools, set the `REACT_DEBUGGER` environment variable to a command that will start your custom debugger. You can then select "Debug JS Remotely" from the Developer Menu to start debugging.
The debugger will receive a list of all project roots, separated by a space. For example, if you set `REACT_DEBUGGER="node /path/to/launchDebugger.js --port 2345 --type ReactNative"`, then the command `node /path/to/launchDebugger.js --port 2345 --type ReactNative /path/to/reactNative/app` will be used to start your debugger.
> Custom debugger commands executed this way should be short-lived processes, and they shouldn't produce more than 200 kilobytes of output.
You can use [the standalone version of React Developer Tools](https://github.com/facebook/react-devtools/tree/master/packages/react-devtools) to debug the React component hierarchy. To use it, install the `react-devtools` package globally:
> Note: if you prefer to avoid global installations, you can add `react-devtools` as a project dependency. Add the `react-devtools` package to your project using `npm install --save-dev react-devtools`, then add `"react-devtools": "react-devtools"` to the `scripts` section in your `package.json`, and then run `npm run react-devtools` from your project folder to open the DevTools.
Open the in-app developer menu and choose "Show Inspector". It will bring up an overlay that lets you tap on any UI element and see information about it:
However, when `react-devtools` is running, Inspector will enter a special collapsed mode, and instead use the DevTools as primary UI. In this mode, clicking on something in the simulator will bring up the relevant components in the DevTools:
Make sure that the dropdown in the top left corner of the Chrome console says `debuggerWorker.js`. **This step is essential.**
Then select a React component in React DevTools. There is a search box at the top that helps you find one by name. As soon as you select it, it will be available as `$r` in the Chrome console, letting you inspect its props, state, and instance properties.
You may also access these through `Debug → Open System Log...` in the iOS Simulator or by running `adb logcat *:S ReactNative:V ReactNativeJS:V` in a terminal while an Android app is running on a device or emulator.
On iOS devices, open the file [`RCTWebSocketExecutor.m`](https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/Libraries/WebSocket/RCTWebSocketExecutor.m) and change "localhost" to the IP address of your computer, then select "Debug JS Remotely" from the Developer Menu.
On Android 5.0+ devices connected via USB, you can use the [`adb` command line tool](http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html) to setup port forwarding from the device to your computer:
Alternatively, select "Dev Settings" from the Developer Menu, then update the "Debug server host for device" setting to match the IP address of your computer.
> If you run into any issues, it may be possible that one of your Chrome extensions is interacting in unexpected ways with the debugger. Try disabling all of your extensions and re-enabling them one-by-one until you find the problematic extension.
4. Open the project in Android Studio and resolve any dependency issues. The IDE should guide you through this steps after hovering your pointer over the red lines.
When working with native code, such as when writing native modules, you can launch the app from Android Studio or Xcode and take advantage of the native debugging features (setting up breakpoints, etc.) as you would in case of building a standard native app.
